Car body repair scam for paintless dent removal. Scammer finds you in a parking lot, offering to remove minor dents from your car, claims they do this on the side for extra money besides their normal job doing it for a company during the day, will do for you for 1/4 the shop price. They end up doing a lousy job and making your car worse with their inadequate tools and skills. There was no written contract or paperwork.
They start out saying you pay nothing if you are not satisfied. Then when done, you express your dissatisfaction and they try to claim YOU were the one scamming them by not wanting to pay the full amount they proposed IF you were satisfied. They make you feel guilty for not paying and try to intimidate you. They threaten to call a tow truck to seize your car and put a mechanic’s lien on it. When you get your car home later and wipe off the paste, you see they caused more damage and didn?t fix the problem.
The Hispanic male about 25 doing the work said his name was ?Tony? with close cut hair. He called me on his Cricket cellphone “832-388-8419” while he was there and said I could call him later if he needed it fixed more. However, it was all a ruse, because he knew his work was terrible and had no intention of ever doing more. That?s why he uses the white paste to hide the damage he caused and says it must be left on overnight. By the time you remove it later, you discover the scam and he is long gone. His wife was about 25 also and the 50 year old fat mother of one of them had her boobs almost spilling out of her top. The women both had dirty blonde or light brown hair.
They were driving a fancy expensive-looking black 2-door sports car in the Fry?s Electronics parking lot Monday night 5-3-10 about 830PM at 11565 S.W. Hwy 59 South Houston, TX with store phone 832-200-3300.
Duplicate post
The other duplicate was deleted. So ostill need responses
So what kind of responses do you expect here and what good will any of them do?
And how gullible does someone have to be to fall for a sales pitch like this.
This thread will probably get the axe also.
First, by educating others, it helps to save others. If there is a scam, unsafe neighborhood, con artist, rapist on the loose, etc, is it not better to warn others from being harmed? If people never reported when they were victimized by any type of crime, it would allow the con to continue longer. By informing others, it helps society as a whole.
Second, its not helpful or just to further punish the victim with condescending comments. It’s similar to when a raped woman goes to file a report and she is told things like it was all her fault. Have you EVER been ripped off or cheated on something? Does it help for people to call you stupid, gullible, etc? Im sure the person who was harmed already knows that.
You called the police, I hope?
In other jurisdictions the police considered this a criminal matter and arrested the scammers. Here they said its a civil matter and the only recourse is to take them to court.
http://www.cityofprescott.net/news/index.php?id=1142
http://www.pinellascounty.org/news_releases/02_11_05/auto_body_repair_scams.doc.
I apologize if I came across too harsh on you. As to what to do about the people who are pulling this scam your options are very limited.
The police are correct; it’s a civil matter and could be pursued in court but even if you located, sued, and won a judgement against them odds are you would probably never get any money back.
Going to court and winning a judgment is only a small part of the battle. Collecting your money once you have that judgment is the difficult and very frustrating part.
Been there and done that.