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Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket
- tomaskafka 6mo ago“Wasn’t the system supposed to be fixed?“ Why would it be fixed? Insurance companies aren’t willing to invest in oversight, and everyone else profit, there is no incentive for changing the system.
- bombcar 6mo agoIf the cost to an individual insurance company is low enough (in the few millions) and they're not really at risk of it suddenly exploding, and the cost for them to mitigate is also in the millions (or risks killing a customer), they're unlikely to improve. Fight Club, but the other way around. However, if they all gang up together they might do something - but that can cause other issues (a local insurer becomes the only insurance available, etc).
- datadrivenangel 6mo agoNepal is a low income and high corruption country, where the government and formal business structures are unstable enough that 'tipping' becomes common even for government investigators... It's basically a way for everyone to get more tourists dollars, which is one of Nepals primary exports.
- expedition32 6mo agoScamming bored rich people is one of the more victimless crimes.
- guzfip 6mo agoIdk they gave SBF 25 years for it.
- tt24 6mo agoHow can it possibly be defined as victimless
- School-Cotton 6mo agoIn my experience people use “victimless” to mean “the victims are people I lack sympathy for”.
- mikkupikku 6mo agoWhy don't they just charge [more] for a mountain license? A few thousand per hiker would probably be tolerated by people who view the hike as a lifetime achievement kind of thing.
- tim333 6mo agoThey do charge quite a lot for mountain climbing permits but trekking is mostly just walking from village to village along the usual paths the locals use.
- leoedin 6mo agoThere’s far more tourists in Nepal who are trekking than mountaineering. And those tourists are going to be much more price sensitive. It’s not just wealthy Americans, but people from all over the world - India, China, middle income countries etc. All those people are spending money in tea houses and hiring local guides.
- shellfishgene 6mo agoMy travel health insurance lately warns of Egyptian hospitals and doctors trying to charge absurd amounts for simple procedures for tourists, and pressuring them to pay, arguing they can get it back from their insurance. Similar story.
- linkjuice4all 6mo agoJust include helicopter rides in the ticket. These aren't adventures anymore - just "natural" theme parks for monied elites that need talking points and social media posts flexing their wealth. Does Six Flags charge your insurance for security to drive you back to your car?
- s5300 6mo ago[dead]
- IAmBroom 6mo ago"In at least one case cited in the investigation, baking powder was mixed into food to make tourists physically unwell." The only ill effect I can find from overconsumption is a "tingly sensation on the tongue". Of course, that doesn't mean the 'poisoner' wasn't ignorant of this, and genuinely did it trying to make them sick. Or maybe they simply said, "If you feel your tongue tingling, YOU ARE DYING!!!".
- MontagFTB 6mo agoCould it be a symptom of high altitude oxygen deprivation?
- datadrivenangel 6mo agoYes, which is why it's easy to then convince people to evacuate. People do die on Everest, including EBC treks from altitude sickness alone, so severe symptoms usually lead to taking the trekking back down the mountain.
- ambicapter 6mo agoI feel like "make physically unwell" here just means they'll taste something gross, not realize it is the baking powder, and treat the feeling as if something is wrong with their body. I know mixing up baking soda and baking powder has made for some pretty unpleasant tasting food for me.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoIt’s a leavener when you get it wet, so swallowing enough will definitely feel like digestive upset from all the gas.
- tokai 6mo agoBaking powder is used by some athletes as it is shown to enhance performance.[0] I find it more realistic that they are adding it for that effect than making anyone unwell. As its not really something that makes you ill. [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8427947/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8427947/
- dr_faustus 6mo ago[flagged]
- thinkingtoilet 6mo agoThe article does talk about guides deliberately adding stuff to people's food to make them sick. It goes a bit beyond that.
- yard2010 6mo agoThe problem is not in this specific case (those insurance companies won't go bankrupt), but with the system. When you don't have a proper administration you can't really cooperate as effectively as with proper administration. This is the symptom, not the problem. Imaging the price of less cooperation - when taken to the extreme the insurance company won't accept to insure people trekking there. The price will go up. This will hurt both the industry and the trekkers. Proper administration > profit
- skilled 6mo agoI did the Everest base camp trek in late 2015, at that time it was quite common (saw it myself and heard about it) that people would do the trek up but to get down they would fake a leg/back injury or blame altitude sickness and the chopper from Kathmandu would come pick you up, as long as you had the right insurance.
- bombcar 6mo agoI wonder how much a chopper ride would cost at "reasonable rates" (e.g, not the air ambulance but just a chopper).
- doikor 6mo agoPer person around $1500. Over 10k of you can’t fill the chopper.
- paxys 6mo agoI'm assuming less than the average ambulance ride in the USA
- throwway120385 6mo agoFrom personal experience it's about twice the cost of an ambulance ride from my house to the hospital. Air ambulances here are about 10 times as much.
- bombcar 6mo agoHaving something scheduled is cheaper than on-demand, too. You may even end up using the same equipment, but at a lower priority (it costs $200 or so to have an ambulance sit at your event, for example).
- hermitcrab 6mo agoYes, but it might be in some ancient Russian helicopter of unknown provenance.
- 6mo ago
- MikeNotThePope 6mo agoTo be honest I'm surprised insurance is offered at all. I did the EBC trek a couple years ago. The temptation to take a helicopter down was real & I didn't have insurance.
- datadrivenangel 6mo agoRescue insurance was required by the trekking company when I did EBC a few years back.
- hawaiianbrah 6mo agoYeah, I think most reputable places do require it, and there are restricted areas they won’t issue permits for without verifying insurance. It was required by our outfitter when we did the Annapurna circuit a few years ago.
- givemeethekeys 6mo agoSounds pretty bad until you look at the numbers.
- RajT88 6mo agoAnd then it looks very bad? The amount of each incident is fairly low, and probably goes a long way to funding the local community. But the number of incidents is nuts - well over 1000 per year.
- givemeethekeys 6mo ago"Around 100,000 people hike to Everest Base Camp every year" I have no idea how many of those people have to buy insurance. Source: https://everestcamptrek.com/how-many-people-hike-to-everest-base-camp/ https://everestcamptrek.com/how-many-people-hike-to-everest-...
- miltonlost 6mo agoStop pointlessly climbing mountains and ruining the natural environment. Climbing Mt Everest at this point is just a sign of conspicuous consumption and not any achievement other than financial. Would have been better to spend your money lighting it on fire.
- datadrivenangel 6mo agoThis is mostly trekking related evacuation, which is far easy and lower impact. EBC is about 100x cheaper overall per person than summit attempts, if not 500x. And Sagarmartha national park and the whole valley up to EBC is an amazingly beautiful part of the world.
- jopython 6mo agoThe "Everest Economy" is worth around $500 million annually.
- tokai 6mo agoThats surprisingly low.
- simojo 6mo agoto be fair, the approach is usually covered in snowpack for most of the year, so impact is minimal by foot traffic. However, most of the protection is fixed, which could have lasting effects if something were to rip out. For other mountains with dry summits in the summers, I would agree: the effects of erosion are frightening
- throwway120385 6mo agoDo people still leave oxygen bottles up there? And what do they do with all of their excrement? The saying is that the snowpack gives back everything you put in it.
- rdtsc 6mo ago> But none of that worked “The scam continued due to lax punitive action,” It percolated up. It’s usually what happens with corruption. If lower levels are found out to have a lucrative scheme, the higher ups (auditors, police, legislators) make a big fuss about stumping it publicly, but behind the scenes go and ask for a cut.
- delichon 6mo ago> But guides and hotel staff ... tell them they are at risk of dying, that only immediate evacuation will save them. I got Acute Mountain Sickness at just 11k feet. Headache, nausea, dizziness, fatigue. I passed out until hitting the ground woke me up. I was very disoriented and vulnerable. If someone had told me that I had to get to a hospital or I'd die they could have led me like a tame goat. And they could be right. If you have high-altitude cerebral or pulmonary edema it is life threatening. A guide getting a kickback can make it a lot more likely just by cutting short the boring acclimatization time.
- meroes 6mo agoYa that was a very serious situation for you. I knew when my dad was barely able to stand but insisted we hike the 1000ft back up to then get back down it was also serious. But when we got home I read how deadly altitude sickness is.
- badgersnake 6mo agoUnnecessary CT scans mean unnecessary radiation exposure. This is a direct harm to the “patient”.
- DiggyJohnson 6mo agoSeems minimal though in the grand scheme of things
- badgersnake 6mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43692390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43692390
- jasonmp85 6mo ago[dead]
- psadri 6mo agoI did the EBC trek last year and at ~4400 meters, we heard about a local Nepalese woman dying from complications of AMS in the local clinic. There might be fishy things going on with the rescues, but the health risks are real.
- sonink 6mo ago> The second method is more troubling. At altitudes above 3,000 metres, mild symptoms of altitude sickness are common. Blood oxygen saturation can drop, hands and feet tingle, headaches develop. In most cases, rest, hydration or a gradual descent is all that is needed. ...investigators found that Diamox (Acetazolamide) tablets, used to prevent altitude sickness, were administered alongside excessive water intake to induce the very symptoms that would justify a rescue call. This doesnt sound accurate. I have trekked the Himalayas for over a decade - the risks of AMS are very real. Two people I have trekked with have died due to AMS on separate himalayan treks - both had trekked multiple times before, and were well aware of the risks. Both the fatalities were around 12000-14000 feet - much below the Everest Base Camp trek. When AMS hits, you need to descend - as fast as possible, with whatever means you have at your disposal. Otherwise you have unknowingly entered a Russian Roulette. And Diamox is used as a preventative course for AMS - alongside excessive water intake - this is standard guidelines in all high altitude himalayan treks.
- ghaff 6mo agoNamche (damn autocorrect) Bazaar which everyone in the Everest region passes through is a bit over 11K feet. 12-15K feet just isn’t that high in the scheme of things. Many peaks in the western US are in that range or more. Yes, minor headaches are pretty normal when acclimatizing. But anything more, you need to go down.
- shadow28 6mo ago> 12-15K feet just isn’t that high in the scheme of things. Many peaks in the western US are in that range or more. The highest peak in the contiguous United States is Mt. Whitney at ~14.5k feet
- kjkjadksj 6mo agoI went from sea level to 11k feet in the same day many times before. I would say the altitude effect is there but not as much as you might expect. A little quicker to be out of breath a little longer to recover it. Not sure what it is like at higher elevations or greater daily altitude delta.
- fxtentacle 6mo ago[dead]
- pRusya 6mo agoA story older than Nepal (misleading tourists). And an article from 6 months ago shows how the govt treats its own people with more examples in HN discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45166972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45166972 What is less discussed is what happened to people who were able to identify the scam and refused to let it happen.
- kaudinya 6mo agoSince then, the govt has been overthrown by a Gen Z protest. An interim govt led the national elections and a young party led by young leaders have won 2/3 majority in the parliament. The new parliament is a radical departure in many ways. Its very hollywoodish if you happen to read the development.
- pRusya 6mo agoThank you for letting me know. I should definitely catch up on current state of affairs.
- alsetmusic 6mo agoHoly crap, why are they using anything more than pine for something of such high stakes?
- tristor 6mo agoAs someone who has done quite a few 14ers in Colorado, many of which I wasn't in the greatest shape for, most people do not get AMS especially below 12k, and therefore the numbers in this article definitely do look like somebody somewhere is faking it or being defrauded. Much of the time you just need to hydrate better if you're going up in elevation above 10k and you'll be fine.
- justonceokay 6mo agoPro-tip: if you propose to your wife at 13000 feet, don’t actually have her put the ring on. Her fingers may swell causing her to panic about circulation and you’ll have to run down the mountain and to this day she will not think it is as funny as you
- tristor 6mo agoIt makes a good story to share with new friends in the future though. I've got one of those too, heh. I proposed to my now-wife on the bow of a sailboat at sunset on a local lake, overlooking the water. Should have been an amazing moment, except I didn't know until that trip that my now-wife gets seasick/motion sickness. Luckily it did not ruin things, but we've never been on a boat together since except for a ferry crossing between Tallinn and Helsinki once.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- dtsykunov 6mo agoAre we supposed to feel bad for insurance companies here?
- kanehorikawa28 6mo ago[dead]
- kikitaffner53 6mo ago[dead]
- ferfumarma 6mo agoWhy is hiking the tallest mountain in the world not an insurance carve out Make coverage void in the Himalayas... problem solved
- decimalenough 6mo agoAs the name suggests, Everest Base Camp is just the starting point of the actual climb.
- adolph 6mo agoIt is a surprise to me that anyone summiting has access to insurance at all. I suppose that if the fraud rate is as low as 3.5% and insurance is contracted specifically for the trip, then a rational payor will raise rates and carry on. On the whole, there is finite capacity of certain assets, like helicopters. If the emergency carrying capacity is X and true emergencies are .6 X then there is spoiled capacity of .4 X, in which fraudulent emergencies are placed, keeping everyone in the system whole so that when true emergencies approach .9 X there is no need for fraud. This follows the "optimal amount of fraud is non-zero" and eliminating this fraud might remove the margin needed for the system to exist at all. An anecdote tells of the British government's bounty on dead Indian cobras giving locals the perverse incentive to start breeding the snakes, to be able to kill more of them and collect more bounty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
- tim333 6mo agoThe people in the article are just trekking around the valleys, not going for the summit. I did a summit attempt a while back and didn't bother with insurance because here wasn't much they could do - helicopters didn't go that high and getting some sherpers to carry you down would be better achieved with cash.
- DanDeBugger 6mo ago[dead]
- phyzome 6mo agoMisread this as "fake rescue rocket" and it took a bit before I realized that.
- userbinator 6mo agoLikewise, I read it as "Fake Rescue Packet"
- pkoiralap 6mo agoWhile it is true that guides and business owners are always looking for opportunities to earn extra cash, the reporting is a tiny bit off here. Start of AMS like symptoms can easily be mistaken for walking fatigue and dehydration. It is easier to identify if you are at rest, but during the trek that is seldom the case. So when you actually start realizing something is wrong, you already are at an elevated risk. The only thing that works in these cases is to descend and as fast as possible at that. Considering the fact that AMS will absolutely and a 100% kill you if you play around with it, guides presenting trekkers with an option of helicopter rescue is not that bad, at least if you look at the worst that can happen.
- ada1981 6mo agoWait till these guys hear about the US healthcare system…
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- tancop 6mo agoif you leave out the poisoning part who is really losing money off this? insurance companies getting scammed is a good thing unless they go and pass on all of the extra cost to customers. its basically DIY wealth redistribution when you consider that nepal is a developing country and most of the local business that make money like this probably have lower profit margins than some american insurance.
- ecshafer 6mo agoWhat an absurd claim. They are acting immorally. They are lying and stealing. Under your logic if you are richer than me I can rob you and aims its weakth redistribution. You have more money, youll get it back!
- silexia 6mo agoWithout harsh punishments, IE years in prison for all involved, scams and fraud will multiply.