Steer Away From Car Wrap Scams
Author: James Greening
The lure of easy money is tough to ignore and Car Wrap Scams are one such kind of scam promising considerable amounts of money for no work. Like most promises of this kind, you are more likely to end up losing money than earning any.
How Do Car Wrap Scams Work?
Take a look at the example below of a fake message pretending to be from Dasani. People randomly received this text message promising them $500 for allowing the company to wrap their car with Dasani branding.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? It should come as no surprise that this is the beginning of a Fake Check Scam.
People who respond to the message are then contacted by a ‘company representative’ regarding details of the fake Car Wrap program. Victims of the scam are sent a fake check as an ‘advance payment’ that they need to deposit in their account. In some cases, victims are also sent a payment via PayPal.
Following this, they need to pay part of the amount as an advance payment to the ‘moving company’ or ‘decal agency’ that is going to wrap their car. This is a huge red flag, as the company could easily pay the vendor themselves instead of relying on someone else to do it.
In the below exchange, we can see the scammer demanding that the victim withdraw cash from their account to pay the ‘moving company’. Requests for payments using unsafe payments methods such as wire transfers are also common.
The real reason for this demand is that the fake check sent to the victim will bounce as soon as the bank catches the forgery. The victim is urged to make a cash payment as soon as possible so that the scam is complete before the bank informs them that the check was fake. Ultimately, the victim ends up losing whatever amount they paid the scammers.
When the victim is sent money through PayPal, the catch is that the scammer makes the payment using a stolen credit card. Therefore, the victim ends up losing money when the credit card company realizes the fraud and reverses the payment.
Signs of a Car Wrap Scam
- Unsolicited text messages or emails from unknown numbers/addresses
- Payouts of hundreds or thousands of dollars are promised for little to no work
- Bad spelling and grammar in the communications
- The ‘company’ offers to pay in advance via check or PayPal
- An advance needs to be paid to the ‘moving company’ or ‘decal agent’ using unsafe payment methods that make it difficult or impossible to obtain a refund
Now that you are aware of Car Wrap scams, avoiding them is as easy as not responding to unsolicited text messages or emails promising money for participating in a Car Wrap program.
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