GREENSBORO, N.C. — It's common, you've seen a van, a truck, or a car with a business name on it. The whole vehicle is a billboard. Usually, it's not a paint job, it's a car wrap. A temporary sticker-like thing. Because they're common, you might not catch this scam.
It all starts with a check in the mail. In the case of a Melbourne, Florida man, the check was for $4,700.
“But they gave a legitimate check, so it looked all real," said Ian MacClean.
The check came with a letter giving directions on how MacClean could have his car wrapped and who to contact with Auto Wrap Campaign. But a real autowrap business in Florida said that's not how it works.
“To believe that somebody's going to pay you to have something on a vehicle nowadays when there's so many other avenues of advertising. I've heard of some horror stories where people lose a lot of money. And the sad part is most of the people who end up following for this kind of scams, don't even have the money in the bank to cover,” said Terry Griffith, Owner of Wrap Giants.
HOW THE SCAM WORKS
The way the scam works, the victim cashes the check and then uses the bulk of that money to pay "the car wrap company".
Of course "the car wrap company" is in on the scam, and once you hand over the money your car is never wrapped, and the money is gone. Then the bank calls you and says the check was fake and now you're out all the money you paid “the car wrap company”.
Anytime you're given a check from the get-go and asked to cash it and send money back to pay for fees or whatever it's a scam.