Over the past year I've been contact 3 times by a person claiming to be hearing impaired, so they use a third party communication system. The all want the same thing, a car detailed and want to tow it to my location, and want to know if I take credit cards. Seemed perfectly fine the first time. Today I got this email, this is how all the dialogues go. Again I live in Utah, and all the calls are from cars over 2000 miles away. I always tell them to get it to me and I'll do the work. Anyone else have a similar thing going on? It seems like a scam, but what is the angle? "Hello this Ben Eric speaking..am hearing impaired.....my uncle had an accident on his way to visit our family in North Carolina..with his cadilac escalade 2006. .but the repair has been done so....I want the car tow back to the state here in your shop ..so you can do the auto detailing service for him, can you handle that for me and I do live here in state and the vehicle is with the tow guy in North Carolina and they will have it tow to your workshop for an estimation by next week wednesday between 11:00am ....will you be able to handle everything done for me and do you accept credit card?Ben" Cheers, GREG
Here is the reply to me saying yes! I told him to send me his credit card info and I'll do COD with the transport company! LOL Yes thanks and i got the email message and can you call the guy now and arrange for the towing of the car down to your shop ok Good i will like to make a deposit of $500 with my credit card now and i want you to do me a favor regarding the towing of my car cos the tow guy does not have the facility to accept credit card so i will u to charge my card for the towing fee and fine...i will give u my card to put thru for $2500 dollars and once that goes through and i want you to deduct $500 as deposit of the cleaning and send the remain $2000 dollars to the tow guy once he receives the money he will have the car delivered to ur shop next week wednesday so u can re-write an proper estimate for the cleaning is that clear and are you ready to bill me ?Ben
and then maybe he will say to the credit card company it was unauthorized or its a stolen credit card since you cant verify his identity and the towing guy is partner in crime to make the 2k? and you find out the car is stolen or it never arrives "next week" well one thing is that Escalades are one of the easiest to steal vehicle, they simply need to break the side handle and it'll go into neutral and its pushable and the steering wheel doesnt lock. nonetheless fishy...
Sounds like it.... 1. "tow guy does not have the facility to accept credit" nonsense 2. "i will give u my card to put thru for $2500 dollars" I'd never do this unless I knew you/your business 3. He can find someone else locally Conclusion, don't waste your time. Tell him you only accept Traveler's checks. And tell him you are not his secretary "can you call the guy now and arrange for the towing of the car down to your shop." lol
Scam, for two reasons. 1. Calling an unknown number can give you a monstrous charge on your phone bill. I've seen scams like this. 2. Transferring money and using you as an escrow makes you liable when the credit card fails.
It's an advanced fee scam, IE Nigerian scam. It goes more in depth here Advance-fee fraud - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Plenty of information on it, just add the sender to your junk mail list.
Tell him this: cash talks, bullshit walks. Obvious scam. Look at how bad his English grammar. Does a fool like that really have $2,500 to use on detailing and towing his car? Of course not...
Thought I would make you aware of this, I know its a scam but wanted to flush it out by pretending I was game. I've got some more emails, I now have him all in knots! Cheers, GREG
yes sir got the same call and email about 3 months ago. I said it cost $4k for an escalade and they said okay here is the credit card...so guess what I hung up and emailed them back nice little note.
my highest credit limit creditcard only has 3800, i dont think i can ever run my credit card at phil's shop if i had an escalade!
I don't charge that much (for the most part) I wanted to rule it out the bs. Fixed just for you TEXASTB...
these "Nigerian" scams are everywhere. I had to deal with a similar scan last year when I moved to VA. They were renting a house for real cheap on Craigslist. The usual story applied ... "I'm overseas and I can't find anyone to buy my house. Please don't mind the for sale sign in front of the house. Send me a $2000 deposit and I will send you the keys to the house." I also encountered a similar scam when we were looking to buy our sheltie and when I was shopping for my first motorcycle. It gets really old after a while ...
Hello, fellow Utah Detailer. It's a total scam they basically are using stolen cards or Identities. I don't know if you have advertised on ksl or not but a lot of scammers find people off of classified ads. My buddy ran into a simular thing where they wanted him to cash a travlers check, by the time it would be found to be fraud he'd be stuck with the bill. I have a close friend who is in fraud alert for banks and Gov. Computers, This counds like a classic example of what to look out for.
Well I kept toying with him, and the stories just got more crazy! I told him send me your credit card, and i'll COD the transport company when they bring the car. He wants to chat with me more. I think my next email to him I'll translate into Nigerian just for the kicks.. Cheers, GREG JUNK: I don't advertise on KSL, I did at one time but the type of clients are 79$ full detail mini vans with more cracker crumbs in more crevices than I thought possible.
