A Cressona man says he’s out $4,000 after he fell for one of many energy drink car wrap scams.
According to State Police in Schuylkill Haven, a 70-year-old man from Cressona reported to them he’d been duped by a company he believed was Full Throttle Energy Drinks.
The man said he’d received an email purportedly from Full Throttle Energy Drinks offering to pay him if he placed the company’s stickers or decals on his vehicle as a form of promoting the energy drinks.
Long story short, in this instance, the Cressona man found himself bamboozled out of $4,000.
Cressona Man Falls Victim to Car Wrap Scam
So, how did a spam-ish looking email result in a $4,000 loss for a local man? It’s a far too common practice known as a car wrap scam.
Car wrap scams are not new and have involved energy drinks in the past, too, notably with Rockstar energy drinks. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission even reported car wrap scams involving Marlboro cigarettes and Purell hand sanitizer.
This is how a car wrap scam works:
- A scammer sends an email or text message with an offer to pay the recipient a regular stipend if they agree to place decals for a company on their vehicle. In some cases, people are offered $500 a week for their participation.
- Once the swindler gets someone to fall victim to their fraud email or text, they arrange to send them a check to cover the amount of the decals being placed on a vehicle.
- The mark is instructed to deposit the check into their bank account.
- Then, the bunko artist tells the victim to send money to a “specialist” contractor who will place the decals on their vehicle. The victim of the scam is told to pay the “specialist” in guaranteed funds, like a cashier’s check or money order, directly into the specialist’s bank account.
- Meanwhile, the original check sent to the mark in this scam bounces, leaving the victim on the hook for the money paid to the so-called decal specialist. Of course, the specialist is actually the original scammer. And the mark in the scam is out the money paid to the scammer, coming from their own funds since the first check was bogus.
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