Chinese Company Offers “Help the Elderly” Insurance to Combat Scams
So a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan walk down a road…heard this one before? Luke 10:29-37? Fine, so it’s not a joke. No, the now-famous parable for the Bible lesson of “love they neighbor” tells of three men walking separately down the Jerusalem-to-Jericho road, each coming across a man injured, bloodied, and lying on the road after being robbed by bandits. The first two men cross the road so to avoid the poor soul and pass by, while the third, the now-named Good Samaritan, stops and gives his assistance. If there is one lesson to be learned from this, it is that the first two men must not have had “Help the Elderly” insurance. Available for sale since October 16 on Alipay, Chinese altruists can now be protected against scam artists seeking to take advantage of naïve do-gooders with an insurance plan from Sinosafe Insurance (Side note: does everything China-related have to use the prefix “Sino?”) at the low annual cost of 3 yuan ($0.47). What, you say, insurance against scams that target helping hands? Unfortunately, such is the case. China has been plagued in recent years by a scourge of elderly scam artists that prey upon the few remaining non-cynics in China by “falling” then accusing any would-be helper of knocking them down. The bemused Good Samaritan is […]
Nov 2, 2015