Beware Of The Craigslist Car Wrap Scammers
image courtesy of www.adwrapz.com
It seems the scammers are making their rounds hitting the job search section at Craigslist pretty hard recently offering job seekers $300-$400 a week to wrap their car with an advertising decal.
Below is a copy of an ad posted on Craigslist just today:
MAKE MONEY WITH YOUR CAR/TRUCK/BIKE
compensation: $300 weekly
employment type: part-timeHave your car, truck, or bike wrapped with Monster product decal and get $300 weekly, contact our agent (717) 835-3492 for more info
FAKE CHECK SCAM
The scammers promise to pay you a certain amount to “rent” the space on your car, but they send you a check for more than that amount. They tell you to deposit the check, take your share of the money, and wire the rest of it to the company that will wrap your car. Weeks after you wire the money, which could be thousands of dollars, you find out the deposited check was a fake.
It takes only a few days for your bank to make the money available to you, but it can take weeks for your bank to determine that a check is a fake. YOU are responsible for any check you deposit: when a check turns out to be a fake, you have to pay the bank back.
Are There Legitimate Opportunities?
FreeCar Media, an L.A.-based marketing firm, hires consumers and wraps their cars in temporary advertising for a variety of clients and is one of the few companies using consumer car wrapping on a large scale. They have more than one million potential drivers in their database, says Livingston. And they have only hired about 6,000 to have their cars wrapped in the six years leading up to to 2005.
So before you sign up for anything, acknowledge that your chances of getting chosen are pretty slim. Something may come of it, something may not.
That is of course if the company still exists. That was in 2005, so it’s even doubtful that even if they are still in business, that they would offer this opportunity anymore.
However, keep in mind that ANY legitimate advertising firm will NOT ask you to pay anything, and not just anyone is eligible to participate. And they certainly would never send you a large check upfront requiring you to pay someone out of that check to install it!
If you see one of these ads on Craigslist or any Classified Site, Facebook etc..you’ll be wise just to flag it as inappropriate and move on.
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