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Online Insurance Quotes: Pranks Start Here

With the influx of online insurance quote comparison sites such as online auto insurance quotes and home insurance quotes, pranks have been taking advantage of opportunities by filling in fake information.  The result? Insurance companies have been getting fake leads and some phone numbers have been receiving dozens of unwanted calls per day.

by Samuel Chong
November 30, 2009

Los Angeles, California.: The online economy has created many conveniences to businesses, including insurance companies that offer online auto insurance quote comparisons.  Certain websites not only offer online auto insurance quotes, but also home insurance and life insurance quotes as well.  While Geico and Mercury Insurance have been putting much money on TV advertisements, other companies invested a great deal on the internet, inviting prospect insurance buyers to fill in an online form for insurance quote comparisons from multiple companies.

Everything has unexpected consequences.  The unexpected consequences of these online insurance quote comparison websites have been the fake leads that they receive from people playing pranks.  Students or other people who have sufficient time may fill out fake information with real phone numbers of people they'd like to bother.  They know that once the phone number of their "enemy" is placed into the database of one online insurance quote company, then that information will immediately sold or transferred to other databases as well.  Suddenly, different insurance companies will be calling.  Their "enemy" will suddenly receive a large number of phone calls.

"So far, there hasn't been an effective way to prevent this from happening." Says Jenny Park, a resident in Los Angeles.  "Sometimes, I receive many phone calls from insurance companies asking me to see if I'd like to buy their car insurance."

"It is easy for someone who has time to fill out a form online for car insurance quotes." Says Peter Wei, an engineer. "However, the phone number they filled out will receive many many phone calls from different auto insurance companies for two, three or more days in a role."

Once the phone number is placed into one of the databases, it would be nearly impossible to remove it as the number is soon sold to other insurance companies who paid much money for a lead.  As a result, not only will they get many fake leads, the people with the phone numbers that the pranksters filled out will receive many many phone calls per day for many days.

"Thus, welcome to the new age of pranksters.  Until the government does something, it is unlikely to be stopped anytime soon." Says Jenny Park.

Should you have any suggestions on how to prevent this new type of practical jokes or good sites of auto insurance quote comparisons that is prank-proof, please write to us.

This article can also be found at http://www.certifiedchinesetranslation.com/09/1130-Online-Insurance-Quotes-Pranks.html

Comments to the Article:

I read your article, Online Insurance Quotes: Pranks Start Here. Just wanted to point out that pranks through insurance quote websites are inevitable because there is currently no way to validate incoming information. However, companies like ours, HomeInsurance.com, reduce the risk of prankster activities by never selling our customer contact information to a 3rd party and always immediately removing customers from our call list if they report that their name was added without their consent.