Troubleshooter: Car wrap business too good to be true
DURHAM (WTVD) -- A Triangle woman's quest to earn some extra money ended with her losing $2,500.
Michelle Bowditch told me it started when a company called Car Ad Auto Shop sent her an email about car wrap ads.
"They were recruiting people to do advertisement for them using their own cars. You'll make $450 a week and they will send someone out, you know, to put the wrap on your car," Bowditch said.
The offer of $450 a week to have her car wrapped with an advertisement was appealing.
"I said well that will definitely help me get out of debt," Bowditch said.
To get started, she said she was sent a check for $2,950. Through email, she was instructed by Car Ad Auto Shop to keep $450 for herself as her first week's pay, and cash out the remaining $2,500 to pay for the advertising wrap costs.
"She told me take $2,480 to send to them and take $20 to pay for the Priority Express mail for the post office. When I went to deposit it into my account, they put a hold on it. So, I assumed that after the hold came off the check, the check was good," Bowditch added.
Bowditch said she followed the instructions emailed to her and stuffed $2,480 in cash into an envelope and sent the money to an address in Florida.
"When she received the money she said, 'Well, the car wrap team will be coming to North Carolina because they had more people here, because they're gonna be coming out of Florida,'" Bowditch said.
After mailing out the cash, Bowditch got a call from her bank telling her the check she received for $2,950 from Car Ad Auto Shop was a bad check. Now, she owes all that money back.
"It's a painful lesson that I had to learn because I thought it was a legit job," Bowditch said.
Bowditch said that although she doesn't have much hope of getting her money back, she hopes others don't fall for the same ploy.
"It's an easy way that people can pray on innocent people and you don't know that it's a scam. How they formulate the letters that they be sending out to you and it sounds so legit," Bowditch said.
Police are investigating her case, but they caution that it may be difficult to track down the money's location and identity of the person(s) behind the emails.
One way to protect yourself from something like this is to look out for red flags. If someone you don't know sends you a check asking you to cash it and send the money elsewhere, that could be a wake-up call -- even if it's supposed to be for a job, supplies, or to collect some sort of winnings.
Also, it's important to note that just because the check or paperwork has a legitimate company's name on it, doesn't necessarily mean it's from that company. Using a company with a good name on the check is a tactic that scammers might use to make you think the check is good.
In Bowditch's case, the check she received had a reputable insurance company's name on it, but that company had nothing to do with the car wrap company.
