A scam in the making????

Greg Nichols

Greg Nichols

New member
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
 
I've gotten this phone call several times too, and they say they are in the hospital. I tell them to ship the car up to me, and I will accept payment when I am finished, but will not pay for tow company. It's pretty crazy, but these cars never showed up.
 
Dunno buddy. I'd ask for a bank transfer on this one. I mean if he's got credit cards and he's got this swanky hearing-impaired service, then it's obvious that he would also have internet banking.
 
I had the same thing happen to me 2 weeks ago thru an AT&T operator for the hearing impaired. The called me 3 different times stating the exact things you have mentioned. When I insisted they listen to me explaining that I am a mobile service, they seemed to ignore this key fact. They insisted to drop it off at my shop........ I do not have a shop I am mobile!!!!!



Ultimately the hearing impaired caller hung up on the operator who told me caller hung up.........



DEFINITELY A MAJOR SCAM
 
IT sounds like a scam to me. It reminds me of a time i had a guitar for sale on Craigslist and I got a email from a guy who wanted to buy it but would send me a check for way more than I was selling it for so i could pay this person who was going to come pick it up. When I got the check it was for $3000.00. When I went to the bank the Banker seemed to know what was going on and asked me out of nowhere "did you sell something"? I said yes. He then said let me guess "craigslist"? and I again said "yes." He then told me all about how people were getting scamed the same way. I then emaild the guy and asked if he could just do a money order and I never heard from him again. I just tore up the check and that was that. But I have heard of people getting scammed the same way. And it makes me so mad that people will go through any trouble to do this to others. What you wrote sounds like it could be legit. But its also strange he wants to pay you all this money so you can pay the Tow guy who will then drop it off after you pay him. It just seems like there is somthing not right there. Please keep us posted.
 
Got one of these "hearing impaired" phone calls just last week. I was "suspicious" and the caller hung up half way though the conversation.
 
Well I kept asking the guy to give me his credit card and I would pay the transport company when they drop off the car. Here are some emails after the final posting above:







On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 3:01 PM, Greg Nichols <reflectionsdetail@gmail.com> wrote:

> No chat needed, just give me your credit card number, and I pay the

> transport guys upon arrival............If I have to do it your way, it

> will cost you much more.

>

> GREG

>

> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Eric Ben <beneric40@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> YES BUT I WILL GIVE MY CARD TO RUN AND PAY THEM COS THERE ARE A SMALL TOW

>> GUY AND THERE LIKE BROTHERS TO EM AND* THAT* IS WHY I WANT TO HELP .AND I

>> AND ONLINE IN GOOGLE CHAT* LET CHAT SO THAT WE CAN GO FROM THERE?OKAY

>>

>> ________________________________

>> From: Greg Nichols <reflectionsdetail@gmail.com>

>> To: Eric Ben <beneric40@yahoo.com>

>> Sent: Tue, 7 December, 2010 11:42:17

>> Subject: Re: Auto detaling

>>

>> means the transport company will get the money upon delivery.

>>

>> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 12:38 PM, Eric Ben <beneric40@yahoo.com> wrote:

>>> *** Yes but what is the mean of cod

>>>

>>> ________________________________

>>> From: Greg Nichols <reflectionsdetail@gmail.com>

>>> To: Eric Ben <beneric40@yahoo.com>

>>> Sent: Tue, 7 December, 2010 11:37:02

>>> Subject: Re: Auto detaling

>>>

>>> Every towing company will do COD.

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 12:33 PM, Eric Ben <beneric40@yahoo.com> wrote:

>>>> Yes but this towing company is my private towing company and* are u ready

>>>> to

>>>> run my card thru and send the funds to there so that there can deliver

>>>> the

>>>> car?Ben

>>>>

>>>> ________________________________

>>>> From: Greg Nichols <reflectionsdetail@gmail.com>

>>>> To: Eric Ben <beneric40@yahoo.com>

>>>> Sent: Tue, 7 December, 2010 11:31:44

>>>> Subject: Re: Auto detaling

>>>>

>>>> have the towing cod, I'll pay the towing guy upon delivery.

>>>>

>>>> send me your credit card info, thanks.

>>>>

>>>> GREG

>>>>
 
easy scam ,

the deal is this: u run a fake card/stole card , steal money from a credit card and send the money to the thief.

his mission : to find someone who do the dirty work so he is clean.
 
If I hv never met this customer before, and he made such a special request, I'll ask him to pay the tow truck driver first. Settle everything between himself and the towtruck first....and then, we'll talk. I won't even waste more than 5mins with this kinda person.



The credit card might not even be stolen. A stolen car would've been cancelled quite quickly by the rightful card owner.

That low-life could hv banked in $2500 "dirty money", and he wants to give that money to you. And when you return that money or $2000 to the tow-trucker (who's his friend or maybe himself!!!), that money is clean!
 
I have had that call as well. Though when they called me I was told they had several Honda Accords just purchased that they need to get cleaned up. They were supposed to be delivered by tow. Never showed up.



With all of us receiving these calls and not following through it makes you wonder how many have...
 
CosminTX said:
easy scam ,

the deal is this: u run a fake card/stole card , steal money from a credit card and send the money to the thief.

his mission : to find someone who do the dirty work so he is clean.
Click to expand...



My thoughts exactly!



Here are 2 scams that are almost identical to the one you are experiencing, one of them happened in Salt Lake City Utah.



Con artists scam consumers with hearing impaired phone system - ABC 4.com - Salt Lake City, Utah News



-and-



Saabnet.com: General BB Post: Nigerian Scammers Using Hearing Impaired System
 
Generally when someone is lying, they give away too much information. Dissecting his original email leads me to believe he is lying due to the fact he immediately mentioned he is hearing impaired, why does this matter if the 2 of you are exchanging emails? Also, he gave us all this information about where the vehicle was going, who was there, his impairment, but nothing about how he found your detailing shop? Sounds weird. Another thing that sparked my curiosity is this, he said he wanted the car towed back to your shop, supposedly the vehicle was in an accident and repaired, so if it needs to be towed back, then lets just assume that it is still in NC where it was heading (if any of this is true)......so you mean to tell me that between NC and Utah he could not find one single reputable detailer? He never mentioned how he came across your shop, but he just has to have it done there right? Doesn't add up.



Greg am not taking anything away from your detailing abilities, am merely stating that it seems suspicious for an individual to have body repair done and the body shop did not "detail" his vehicle before returning it? (and yes I already know body shops are not detailers, but still)



Something else noticeable, he kept saying I do live here in state (bad grammar) but just those words right there tell me his message is generic and could be used as a template for contacting others in different states.



And last but not least, in every conversation he pushes for you to charge his card and give the funds to his tow guy (which.....first was HIS private company, then later turned out to be a small company who are his friends?) He invited you into a Google Chat to persuade you to complete the transaction (run the card and give him the money so his hands are clean)



I say this is a classic scam. :ignore
 
Yup a scam.. Im always leery about emails from yahoo or aol that regard to my business. You can usually tell within the first few sentences as almost all scams use almost identical wording. almost all scams will say "best regards" at the end of the email.
 
It's a scam.



It is a very tricky scheme that has been used tons of times in different contexts.



The idea is to have the scammed individual pull out money from a credit card, or checking account and pay back a certain amount of that money. The credit card or check will clear and funds will be withdrawn, and then you will give the scammer back a certain amount. When the checking account or credit card account is discovered as a fraud, it comes back to the individual who made ran the credit card, or cashed the check. That puts you in a bad place with a white collar crime on your hands and the scammer may or may not have gotten his money from you, but he is not guilty of a crime.
 
David Fermani said:
Any more contact from this guy again Greg? Definitively sounds like a scam.
Click to expand...



I got him to send a card number, I then called Discovery and reported the card as fraudulent use. They are grateful. I sent a message back to the guy, telling him the card was stolen.......he wrote back to say he'll send another card:wow:



I also received two more TDD calls I told them send me an email rather than TDD as too many frauds out there..........



While I knew it was a fraud all along, I wanted to learn how it all works, I wanted to share that with the forum........Hope someone learned from it.



Cheers,

GREG
 
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