SEEING RED: Why porridge is the only answer for holiday sickness scammers

A modern-day marketing slogan which some people take advantage of, even when there’s no one or nothing to blame.

Be it suffering an injury slipping on ice, being hurt in a car crash or having a dickie tummy on holiday abroad, it would seem there’s a pot of cash out there to compensate for every mishap.

In fact, for some time now cowboy firms have openly targeted and pressured some holidaymakers into making bogus claims for illnesses they never had.

It’s not so much a new trend, but one which appears to have escalated in recent times.

But now the holiday firms are fighting back and are taking bogus claimants to court and being successful.

Only last week a couple from Liverpool were branded “fundamentally dishonest” by a judge and hit with £6,000 legal costs after holiday firm TUI mounted a legal challenge against their claim of falling ill during their honeymoon to Mexico.

They were trying to get their grubby, little hands on up to £2,000 in compo but were caught out because they posted photos on Facebook of themselves abseiling, sipping cocktails and enjoying a yacht trip.

I knew Facebook would one day come back to bite the holiday narcissists on the you know whatsit.

But how thick can you be?

Go on holiday, post every minute detail of your holiday - as many attention-seeking folk tend to do nowadays - and then come home and claim you have been struck down by a crippling stomach bug.

It’s a shame the pair aren’t doing porridge now instead of being £6,000 worse off. Perhaps a dose of porridge for these bogus claimants will do the trick and put a halt to these greedy scams.

Sadly, the actions of these con artists are like those who abuse the benefits system - they’re spoiling it for those who do have a genuine claim.

Because ultimately, there is talk of places putting a stop to taking holiday makers from countries where people lie and at the very least put prices up!

There is even a suggestion that some resorts may treat people from the UK differently - although the behaviour of some of our fellow Brits has probably already led to that anyway!

No, until these scammers are flushed out, holiday sickness scams will continue to be a real disease.