The story is emerging of a lady who allegedly claimed to be the relative of a Germanwings crash victim in order to score free tickets to the South of France. Via The Local: "The Halterner Zeitung, a local paper from the town which lost 16 school pupils in the March 24th Germanwings crash, reported that…
Continue reading: This Is Low: Lady Pretends To Be Germanwings Crash Victim For Free Flights
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I'm not normally a fan of the death penalty...but in this case I might make an exception.
@AlexS this is a bizarre story but I don't know how to make of your comment. But seriously, how f**ked up is this woman?
"Who would want to fake their way to a “free trip” to an airplane crash site?"
Its part of the "cover" of the grieving family member. A small inconvenience for her and friends to fly to the French Riviera, I imagine.
All sorts of weirdos come out of the woodwork in these situations. I imagine it's more than just trying to score free tickets. The fact that they visited the crash site etc - I think these people have problems. No normal person would go to such lengths for a con like this.
Very odd woman to say the least.
And while I'm no expert on German law, I can't imagine Lufthansa is able to file charges against her. Sue her, yes. Report her to the authorities so they file charges, yes. But I hope a company can't charge an individual.
I think that believing this woman is mentally ill is a security blanket. Sometimes, people ARE horrible, despicable a-holes who do terrible things for purely selfish reasons. We don't want to believe that people are just jerks. We never want to believe that someone would take advantage of a tragedy, but they do, and there isn't a damn thing wrong with the mental state of the despicable human beings who do. My assumption is that this woman is just another a-hole looking to cash in on a tragedy. No counseling needed, just a swift kick in the face.
In our own country thousands cashed in on Hurricane Katrina fraud, which left over 1,500 dead from Louisiana alone. Why wouldn't a scumbag or four pop up to cash in off a well-publicized plane crash? It is well-known that survivors and family members get free trips plus cash settlements. Of course frauds are going to pop up to try to take advantage. I just hope these folks don't offer up the defense that they were travel hacking.