Alert: New Scam Tactic

A new scam to be aware of from the Missouri Automobile Dealers Association…

FROM: Doug Smith, President

The scenario is this:

A customer, who has a vehicle in a Missouri Dealer’s body shop, is contacted by a third party claiming to work for the dealer. The customer is told the vehicle repair is near completion, but in order for it to be released to the customer, a sum of money (either the whole repair cost, or a portion) has to be wired to an account provided by the caller.

In this instance, the account was in Florida. In this example, the customer went to their local bank to wire money to the account. In a bit of helpful customer service, the attentive bank employee noticed that this seemed odd and contacted the dealer, which prevented the fraud from occurring.

No one is sure how the scammer got the information or knew that the vehicle was in the shop. Please be ALERT to every scam that is a possibility! Thieves are using internet data to try any potential fraud they can cook up in their heads. Please be as diligent as possible.