It was a major story in Mallorca a few years ago. British holidaymakers who had been staying at certain all-inclusive hotels were filing numerous claims in the UK for compensation because of alleged food poisoning.
In September 2017, the Guardia Civil mounted a major operation against fraudulent holiday sickness claims. Various businesses and homes in Puerto Portals, Bendinat and San Agustín were raided and six arrests were made.
Eight Britons accused of having formed an organisation dedicated to getting tourists to make false claims are now set to stand trial for fraud. They include Laura C., whose company, Elite Project Marketing SL, is alleged to have sent information regarding these claims to law firms in England. The court instruction names a Ryan Bridge as one of the people in the UK who was in charge of processing the false claims gathered in Mallorca.
This goes on to highlight the case of a hotel chain in Alcudia. It was faced with some 800 claims, yet there was evidence over the period of time in question (from 2016 to 2017) that only 38 tourists had requested medical assistance. "The hotels had passed all health inspections satisfactorily."
UK legislation made it easy to lodge these claims, with compensation having been up to 40,000 pounds. "There was 98% probability of success and at no cost to the client."
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Hopefully they get jail time for the damage they caused to Mallorca.
I remember there was some discussion about banning Brits from all-inclusive at the time. But besides the cheeky appearance of banning a specific nationality and the logistical mess it would create (not to mention the inevitable screaming about taking away Brits' inherent right to defraud hotels), that would effectively have put the cheapest all inclusives out of business. I can't imagine how Calas de Mallorca would have survived that. Perhaps yet another reason why all-inclusive is so popular with Brits. But since Britain tends to be a few years behind the rest of the world, they might not yet know this practice has been long since dismantled. So, no cake, sorry. You might be able to get away with it in Turkey or Egypt though.