If you've shopped for insurance online, you've submitted personal information to receive free quotes from quoting Web sites. Behind the scenes, some companies make a living by selling your information to brokerage firms and insurance agents, who in turn contact you in hopes of making a sale.
This isn't unusual. But what happens when one person submits hundreds of fake car, life and health insurance quote requests to one company? A federal jury in Colorado issued a verdict on such behavior Oct. 17, 2008, labeling it fraud.
The key players are two competing companies — NetQuote and MostChoice — that are in the business of selling leads (meaning requests for insurance quotes submitted by customers on their Web sites). NetQuote sued MostChoice and one of its employees, Brandon Byrd, alleging that MostChoice employed Byrd to pretend to be people interested in insurance quotes. The lawsuit claimed that Byrd submitted hundreds — if not thousands — of false inquiries to NetQuote's Web site, knowing that brokers would receive bad information that wouldn't lead to a sale, and ultimately infuriating the brokers.
It's not entirely uncommon for customers who shop for insurance online to give some false personal information (like name and contact number) in order to receive a quote. It's extremely unlikely that anyone would come back to sue you for this. However, when those fake quote requests reach astronomical numbers, it can become a problem — especially for a company that sells this information.
At the same time that MostChoice was allegedly sending streams of fake customers to NetQuote, it was advertising itself as having more accurate and reliable referrals compared to NetQuote.
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In this case, NetQuote complained that its business was sabotaged. It claimed to have lost clients who ended their relationship with the firm after they received bad leads. In addition, at the same time that MostChoice was allegedly sending streams of fake customers to NetQuote, it was advertising itself as having more accurate and reliable referrals compared to NetQuote, states the lawsuit. As a result, NetQuote sued its competitor for fraud, tortious interference with business relations, common law unfair competition, false advertising and deceptive trade practices.
The jury ruled in favor of NetQuote and found MostChoice and Byrd guilty of fraud and tortious interference with business relations. The rest of the charges were dismissed. According to verdict documents, the jury awarded $1.6 million in actual damages and $3.2 million in punitive damages to NetQuote. In addition, the jury decided that Byrd must pay $10,000 in punitive damages to NetQuote.
"We're delighted that NetQuote was able to recover damages for the harm that MostChoice caused and that the jury appropriately punished MostChoice for its wrongful conduct," says Dan Williams, attorney for NetQuote. "We're very satisfied with the verdict."
Ryan Isenberg, attorney for MostChoice, says that his client regrets any frustration experienced by insurance agents who received false leads, but believes that the verdict was based on emotion and that NetQuote failed to prove that it lost clients as a result of the fake quotes.
"In addition, there are numerous grounds upon which MostChoice will ask the judge to grant a new trial and MostChoice will wait to see how those motions are disposed before weighing its appeal options," Isenberg says.
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