Discretion is her job, and the young woman, with rectangular glasses and a black coat, does not attract attention in this large Parisian hotel where she has made an appointment, 300 meters from the offices of her company, the Vendôme Investigation Agency. Private detective, Julie Catalifaud works in particular on behalf of several insurance companies. “I have the advantage of having a profile that you would not expect in this profession, she says. I am a woman with a dynamic young executive. It’s easy for me to walk into a restaurant with a small handbag, a computer or a book, to sit at a table near the person I’m investigating, even if I can, sometimes even him talk, without her being suspicious. “
Its missions consist of investigating and following people in the shadows, in order to verify that they have not defrauded their insurer. Legal surveillance as long as it is not disproportionate and does not violate the privacy of the insured, the detectives having to limit themselves to intervening in public places.
Scammers are rarely suspicious. The general public is often unaware that private research agents may be mandated to monitor them. Professional crooks imagine, most of the time, that the damage is not great enough to be investigated. This inconsistency serves her. “It’s difficult to hold a character on a daily basis, it’s not a life, notes Julie Catalifaud. Many insurance fraudsters think that investigations and shadows only happen to others. “
“In 80% of cases, it is indeed a fraud”
The young woman, a lawyer by training, has made a specialty of heavy bodily injury cases, resulting in significant compensation from insurance companies. A textbook case? “A woman said that in a car accident she suffered a serious injury in the leg, limped a lot and used a cane. She arrived at the place of the expertise by car, being accompanied. At the exit, we followed her: 300 meters further, the car stopped, the woman got out without a cane, she walked around the car almost running, took the place of the young driver – who was to be his son – and started. “ The vehicle then stopped in front of a supermarket. “The woman threw her cane in the trunk, did her shopping, brought back packs of water in her car. In ten minutes, we had understood that it was not coherent. “
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