MELBOURNE, Fla. – A Melbourne man received an email offering him thousands of dollars to have his car wrapped with a Dr. Pepper advertisement.
However, it turned out to just be a pricey scam.
“But they gave a legitimate check, so it looked all real,” Iain MacClean said.
MacClean showed News 6 that check.
At the time he got the email, he said he was out of work, so the temptation of $4,700 made him at least read all the directions he was given.
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The letter read it was from a Mr. Robert Marsh, the HR manager of the supposed Auto Wrap Campaign.
MacClean said he never called the listed number.
When News 6 reporter James Sparvero tried Wednesday, the number — which features a Louisiana area code — didn’t work.
Instead, the phone read, “User busy.”
Terry Griffith owns a car-wrapping business in Melbourne.
“To really believe that somebody’s going to pay you to have something on a vehicle nowadays when there’s so many other avenues of advertising,” the Wrap Giants owner said.
Sparvero showed MacClean’s email to Griffith to get tips about spotting red flags.
“The fact that they’re asking you check number amount, name on check and all that, I would consider that a scam right off of the top,” he said.
Griffith said that if MacClean had followed the instructions, the scammer could have emptied his bank account.
“I’ve heard of some horror stories where people lose a lot of money, and the sad part is most of the people who end up falling for these kinds of scams don’t even have the money in the bank to cover,” Griffith said.
MacClean is now hoping to raise awareness in case somebody else is targeted next.
“There are some people that can be desperate for money, looking for a paycheck, and it can just end up, you know, kind of screwing them in the back,” he said.
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