Sadly, there are criminals who will stop at nothing for a fast buck and many of these turn to vehicle crime to make their ill-gotten gains.

Road users have to face up to the fact and get wise to the ways in which these people operate. Businesses and lease car drivers, in particular, have been warned that they have been targeted in 'crash-for-cash' scams.

How crash-for-cash scams work and why lease users are at risk

Crash-for-cash is a term used to describe people who deliberately engineer an accident with a fellow user in order to try to get them to pay compensation, typically in the form of trumped up claims of whiplash.

This sort of scam has been around for a while, but it's felt that fleet vehicles are in particular danger as it's believed business insurers are more likely to pay out quickly in comparison to private individuals.

Antony Martin, chairman of the British Vehicle Retail and Leasing Association, told Business Car: "These criminals are picking on a type of fleet car because they're easy to recognise. You can tell [leased] fleet cars by [the branding on] their number plates - Zenith, Arval, Lex, GE etc. It's a very easy way of finding out whether it's a company vehicle.

"There have been incidences where we believe the drivers have been targeted on the basis that it's going to be a fleet policy and it's actually easier to extract cash than from an individual policy."

Companies are naturally attracted to the benefits of leasing and the security provided by such deals, but must guard against this.

Birmingham is the crash-for-cash hotspot

Insurance provider Aviva has been tracking the total number of crash-for-cash incidents in the UK.

It recently found that 25 per cent of these staged claims happened in Birmingham, leaving it in the dubious honour of being the top part of the country for this crime.

Aviva reckons one in nine whiplash claims is bogus. It is currently investigating 17,000 suspicious claims and reckons 4,000 incidents are linked to known 'fraud rings'.

Tom Gardiner, Head of Fraud, Aviva, said, "Crash for cash does not just push up premiums for genuine customers, it puts innocent motorists at risk. It is also a significant drain on scarce public resources such as ambulance, police and A&E time, all of which are wasted on these entirely bogus claims. The number of whiplash claims is a problem unique to the UK and needs urgent reform."

Is the fight against the fraudsters working?

Yet there is a chink of light in the Aviva data. The number of crash-for-cash incidents actually fell by two per cent in 2015. While that might only represent a small fall from a record number in 2014, it is a positive sign. With awareness of such crimes now greater than ever, and technology such as dashboard cameras helping to protect drivers, the battle is already underway to fight back against the fraud.

The problem still exists and, as we've seen, it can be more marked for lease vehicle users. Yet we should all be heartened by the fact that the criminals are also being targeted.

Promoted by Patrick Vernon - 5 Jul 2016