Accident Victims Beware!

The solicitation of accident victims by unscrupulous lawyers and doctors is illegal and subject to criminal prosecution. In addition, under the Code of Ethics that govern attorneys' behavior, lawyers are stricly forbidden from doing this. The penalty for this behavior can be disbarment. The solicitation of accident victims often occurs at accident scenes, hospitals and even at the victim's own home. The people hired by doctors and lawyers to solicit accident victims are known as "runners." Runners are so sly in their methods that accident victims don't even realize that they have been tricked into going to a medical facility or a lawyer and have become the subject of a runner's scam.

When these dirty doctors and lawyers get caught the accident victim's case can be destroyed. After all, who is going to believe them if their doctor or lawyer goes to jail? Moreover, the victims represented by these dirty lawyers will receive less settlement money. Medical facilities that pay runners to solicit victims represented by these dirty lawyers will receive less settlement money. Medical facilities that pay runners to solicity victims have an added expense that "clean" facilities don't have. They have to pay runners upwards of $2,000 for each accident victim they bring them. They recoup these costs by referring the victim to "their" lawyer and stealing it back from the victim's settlement monies at the end of the case.

HERE'S HOW THEY DO IT: Frequently, the victim's medical bill is more than what the insurance company will cover. In addition, sometimes medical facilities overbill their patients. After the case is settled, the doctors demand that the victim pay them from the victim's share of the settlement monies. This office does not "owe" any medical facilities anything for getting clients. We will fight hard to negotiate the bill down so that the client pays the doctor as little as possible. The law office that got the client as the result of a runner will not. Why? Because the lawyer is "in bed with the doctors." The client was referred to the lawyer by the medical facility and will greatly profit from that and future referrals.

 

THE FOLLOWING PORTRAYS SOME OF THESE SCAMS:

The private hospital records and telephone numbers of accident victims are frequently sold and resold to medical facilities and lawyers. These doctors and lawyers bribe hospital employees to get this information. Typically, after the victim goes home he/she is telephoned repeatedly by different runners trying to solicit them. One particularly sneaky approach runners use is to tell the victim that they work on behalf of the hospital. They may even tell the victim that they noticed something in their hospital records that indicates they need follow up care at the hospital’s “private medical facility”. They then have the victim picked up by their own transportation service and brought to a medical facility. What the victim does not know is that the person who called them is a runner who has no connection to the hospital. The medical facility that they are trying to get the victim to go to has no connection to the hospital. It’s a scam. The runners are paid by the medical facilities and lawyers to solicit and/or trick injured people into coming to them.

Hospitals can be extremely fertile grounds for runners to solicit accident victims. Sometimes they directly approach victims. Other times are more sly. They approach accident victims and pretend to be injured or waiting for someone who was injured. They tell the victim that after leaving the hospital they or their friends and/or relatives are going to a “great” lawyer or doctor. This is pure fraud. The runner is not being treated in the hospital. Neither are their relatives and friends. They are only looking to make money by referring victims for treatment or legal services.

When an automobile accident occurs, runners (oftentimes tow truck drivers) have their first chance to solicit accident victims. They use scanners to monitor police radio transmissions and arrive at accident scenes frequently before the police get there. At the scene they solicit the victim to go to a doctor or a lawyer. Some runners will slyly tell the accident victim that they “witnessed” the accident and that they can help them. The typical victim is agitated, angry and scared and wants to have a witness on their side backing up his/her accident story. The runner tells the victim that he or she must go to a doctor and a lawyer that the runner recommends. What the victim does not know is that this is a scam. The runner was not a witness and does not get listed as one on the police report. The runner will never help the victim in any way with his/her case.