VR8
New member
- Dec 28, 2008
- 524
- 0
I thought this may be a good bit of information to pass along to any of the detailers in business. Over the last couple of weeks I've gotten 2 phone calls that start out with ...
"Good afternoon, this is so-and-so from AT&T TTY Relay Services (or another phone company). I have a phone call for you from a TTY customer are you familiar with TTY services?"
A long time ago I had a TTY (TeleTYpewriter) phone call at another business so I was familiar with the process. The phone company agent will tell you what the TTY caller is saying and then type your response to them. So after some introductions as to who was calling, the caller states that they are moving to my area and are looking for someone to detail their fleet of vehicles. I'll admit, I perked up when I heard the word "fleet"! It quickly fell into that "too good to be true" category when they said 6 Cadillac Escalades and 6 Toyota Camry's.
Some of you may already know what comes next. The caller asked if I could "first do them a favor". "Uh oh", I said. Here comes the kicker, "The vehicle transfer company will not take my credit card payment. Would you mind taking my payment for the shipping and detailing, then pay the transfer company when they deliver the vehicles to your shop? I'll pay you $5000 today and you can give me back any money that isn't needed for the job".
I quickly ended the call at this point because I know how the rest of that process would go. My business receives a payment for $5000. The next day they ask me for a small refund of some of that money for whatever reason ... and in the end their $5000 payment never completely goes through the bank and I loose the $5000 AND whatever smaller amount I had sent them.
:nomore:
After I received the second similar call the other day I started to wonder what I could do to track down these scammers. Passing along this story was one of my first steps. I'll update if I find a way to help the phone company track these people down. Not sure if the phone companies would even care. Anyone else have a similar phone call?
"Good afternoon, this is so-and-so from AT&T TTY Relay Services (or another phone company). I have a phone call for you from a TTY customer are you familiar with TTY services?"
A long time ago I had a TTY (TeleTYpewriter) phone call at another business so I was familiar with the process. The phone company agent will tell you what the TTY caller is saying and then type your response to them. So after some introductions as to who was calling, the caller states that they are moving to my area and are looking for someone to detail their fleet of vehicles. I'll admit, I perked up when I heard the word "fleet"! It quickly fell into that "too good to be true" category when they said 6 Cadillac Escalades and 6 Toyota Camry's.
Some of you may already know what comes next. The caller asked if I could "first do them a favor". "Uh oh", I said. Here comes the kicker, "The vehicle transfer company will not take my credit card payment. Would you mind taking my payment for the shipping and detailing, then pay the transfer company when they deliver the vehicles to your shop? I'll pay you $5000 today and you can give me back any money that isn't needed for the job".
I quickly ended the call at this point because I know how the rest of that process would go. My business receives a payment for $5000. The next day they ask me for a small refund of some of that money for whatever reason ... and in the end their $5000 payment never completely goes through the bank and I loose the $5000 AND whatever smaller amount I had sent them.
:nomore:
After I received the second similar call the other day I started to wonder what I could do to track down these scammers. Passing along this story was one of my first steps. I'll update if I find a way to help the phone company track these people down. Not sure if the phone companies would even care. Anyone else have a similar phone call?
