17,000 pages

I heard a story on the news this morning that one company filing a claim to BP from the oil gusher in the gulf was given a claims form that contained 17,000 pages.  17,000 pages.

Hopefully, that is the anomaly.  I can't find that online, and it's not in the story below.

With all that money sloshing around, I wonder how many scam artists are converging on the area?  How many fake claims will be filed?  How much money will be siphoned off to the hucksters?  Wherever and whenever there is a lot of money, the con artists are not far behind.

Red tape vexes Gulf residents seeking BP payments

GRAND ISLE, La. – The reefs that David Walter makes for anglers to drop into the Gulf of Mexico are fake, but his frustration as he tries to win compensation from BP for lost income is real. 

State regulators stopped issuing permits for the reefs on May 4 because of the oil spill, effectively killing off $350,000 in Walter's expected business. It sent him into a labyrinth of archived invoices and documents lost by BP. Finally, an offer came: $5,000.

"I said that's not fair because if you say that, then I have to go out of business and I lose everything," said Walter, whose company is based in Alabama. 

Fishermen, property owners and businesspeople who have filed damage claims with BP are angrily complaining of delays, excessive paperwork and skimpy payments that have put them on the verge of going under as the financial and environmental toll of the seven-week-old disaster grows. 

the rest of the story is here.