Car Wrapping Scam

Are you willing to drive around town with a vehicle covered in logos? Scammers hope so.

Who Is It Targeting: Auto owners

What Is It: A bogus check scam that steals your money

What Are They After: One vehicle owner narrowly missed losing out on almost $2,000 after he was contacted by a scammer. The message said the driver would receive $500 a month simply for letting the company “wrap” his car with non-permanent and non-damaging logo wrap for Red Bull. All the driver had to do was go about his business, driving a vehicle that now advertised the popular energy drink.

When his first check arrived for almost $2,000, he was instructed to keep $500 as his first month’s pay and keep an additional $50 to pay the contractor who’d been hired to affix the logo wrap to his vehicle. Then, for some reason, he was supposed to wire the remaining $1450 to an address in Texas. Luckily, he stopped to investigate it further and learned that the check was a fake. The cash he would have withdrawn in order to pay the wire transfer would actually have come from his own account.

How Can You Avoid It:

• Never agree to send money via wire transfer in a situation like this, whether they say they overpaid you, they need a refund or any other reason.
• If there is a legitimate issue with the payment, then make other escrow-based arrangements to return their portion.
• Always verify the validity of a check before doing anything with those funds.
• When in doubt, contact a group like the FTC or the BBB for information.

If you think you may be a victim of identity theft, contact the Identity Theft Resource Center for toll-free, no-cost assistance at (888) 400-5530. Find more information about current scams and alerts here. For full details of this scam check out this article from WIVB.com.