[colivigan]

Hi folks, I haven't been around here much lately, but remembered where some of the smartest people I've met hang out, and thought I'd throw this out there.

Lately, I've been receiving emailed auto quotes from dealers. I am not shopping for a car (although I probably should be). Five of them so far, from different dealers in different parts of the country. They are all for high-end vehicles (Range Rover, BMW, etc.). The dealers appear to be legit, and when I reply to their emails and tell them there must me some mistake, they are very apologetic. In each case, somebody has telephoned the dealership, given my name and email address, and asked for a quote. The last one reports that the caller had a slight Russian accent.

I'm pretty sure that my email hasn't been hacked (it's a Gmail account) but I have changed my password just to be on the safe side. It seems to be a scam of some sort, but I'm having trouble figuring out how it might work, and how this caller could benefit from having quotes sent to my email.

Has anyone heard of anything like this?

[Yontsey]

That's pretty scary. Might be worth looking into signing up for something like LifeLock just encase someone's trying to pull off identity theft.

[alcimedes]

The fact that it's your name as well is the weird part, unless it's obvious from our account name what your real name is.

i haven't heard about anything this persistant though, where an actual person is repeatedly calling up.

[thegeriatric]

Could it be a mate/work colleague playing a joke on you?
Might be worth checking it out just in case.

[colivigan]

Well, the name is obvious from the email account. I got three of them a few weeks ago, then two more today.

My first thought was my kids, actually.

[colivigan]

Lifelock sounds interesting, has anyone used it?

[Yontsey]

I had it for a few years actually. Mainly because I had it offered to me free. I never had any issues but a few years back when a couple companies had credit card info stolen, ie: Sony/Playstation, I had no worries.

[turtle]

First, Good to see you again!

Second, I would pull your free credit reports to be sure nothing has already happened. https://www.annualcreditreport.com/

Third, I would get an identity theft plan since they are pretty cheap. I ended up going with Zander Insurance using this one because I liked it better than LifeLock: https://www.zanderins.com/idtheft/idtheft.aspx

The big thing is making sure you aren't already a fraud victim and then putting fraud alerts on your credit in case you find out it's already happening.

[Windswept]

Originally Posted by colivigan Hi folks, I haven't been around here much lately, but remembered where some of the smartest people I've met hang out, and thought I'd throw this out there. Lately, I've been receiving emailed auto quotes from dealers. I am not shopping for a car (although I probably should be). Five of them so far, from different dealers in different parts of the country. They are all for high-end vehicles (Range Rover, BMW, etc.). The dealers appear to be legit, and when I reply to their emails and tell them there must me some mistake, they are very apologetic. In each case, somebody has telephoned the dealership, given my name and email address, and asked for a quote. The last one reports that the caller had a slight Russian accent. I'm pretty sure that my email hasn't been hacked (it's a Gmail account) but I have changed my password just to be on the safe side. It seems to be a scam of some sort, but I'm having trouble figuring out how it might work, and how this caller could benefit from having quotes sent to my email. Has anyone heard of anything like this?

I read this yesterday just before I went offline, and I worried about it during much of the evening... thinking about what might be going on.

One thing I thought of is that people in different parts of the country have your information. They contact the car dealership in their area, knowing that each dealership will probably run a credit check on you before they go to the trouble of sending out a quote. Then, when the scammers call to ask if a quote has been sent out, and the dealers say 'yes', the crooks know you have good credit.

Then what could happen is that all these crooks, all across the country, *on the very same day* could go in and buy a car using your information, and then skip town with their new cars, and go home to where they really live. Or, they will drive the cars to a port where they are shipped overseas with falsified documents.

They will all buy their cars on the same day, because once you find out, or the dealerships/banks find out that fraud is in progress, alerts will go out and the credit companies will put freeze alerts on your credit file.

I hope you shred all the mail you throw out. Otherwise, some crooks could just drive down your street, write down your house address, get your name and other info out of the trash container waiting to be emptied by the city trash pick-up.

I don't know all the ins and outs of identity theft, but I do think you should be worried about what is happening. People are actively setting you up for a scam of some sort. Maybe you should contact your bank and ask the manager there what credit monitoring service is the best. I think you should take steps to protect yourself from identity theft as soon as possible. Sorry to be an alarmist, but what you describe is scary.

Good luck. Btw, it's important to pick a *really* trustworthy id theft service, because you'll have to give them your social security number.

[colivigan]

Thanks for the responses everyone! Windswept, that's a pretty scary scenario you've envisioned. I hadn't thought that the dealers might be running credit reports. Wouldn't they need more than a name and an email address?

And if it's such an elaborate scam, why do they tip their cards by having the quotes emailed to me, where they can't even see them? As far as I can tell, my Gmail account has not been compromised. I changed the password, I always use https or POP/SSL, and there are no unusual accesses in the activity log. It's all very puzzling.

But lots of good advice here. I will definitely be looking into my credit reports, and consider signing up for identity theft protection. Turtle, have you been happy with Zander?

[colivigan]

Oh, I missed the part where you said "the scammers call to ask if a quote has been sent". Interesting. I have been contacting the dealers immediately upon receipt of the emails, so hopefully they will have their guard up. One of them even told me that he logs all incoming calls, but this one came as a *transfer* from another dealer, so that the number couldn't be traced. Hmmm ...

[drewprops]

Have you gotten one from the Lamborghini dealer yet? I'm still waiting to hear back from that one

Scary stuff, please let us know if you find out more.


...

[colivigan]

Porsche, Range Rover, BMW, and Mercedes (multiple). No Lamborghini yet. I'll pass it along when it comes.

[alcimedes]

Do you have a friend who might be just giving you a hard time? This sounds way too complex for anything I can see a real life scammer doing.

[colivigan]

Yes, I sort of think so too, especially since the quotes came in two batches a couple of weeks apart. I do drive a very old car, so it's conceivable that somebody is doing this as a practical joke ... but I can't imagine who!

After some research, I decided to sign up for TrustedID. It's a bit more expensive, but seems more comprehensive in the protection aspects of the service.

[colivigan]

I just had a very helpful response from one of the dealers in Atlanta (slightly redacted for privacy reasons):

Hi <me>, I obtained your information as an incoming phone call from a male with a slight accent claiming to live in South Carolina, looking for a Black Mercedes Benz S550. The phone number he gave me is 999-999-9999, I am not calling him back. My guess is that he buys high line model Mercedes Benz and exports them for a profit. This is big business in the US. My guess from my MANY years of experience in the Mercedes Benz business, this guy has obtained some or all of your identity, will probably pay in US dollars for the car and export it in your name, and you will not know it even happened unless US customs contacts you for some reason.

I called the phone number provided, and asked for <me>. He said "This is he". I said, "Well this is the real <me>, why are you shopping for expensive cars using my email address?". There was a moment of silence ... then he hung up.

Considering my next step ...

[Bryson]

I'm assuming you called the Police already?

[colivigan]

Trying to decide which police, I guess. The phone number was a South Carolina area code, but the quotes have come from all over the country. Maybe FBI or Customs?

[Bryson]

I'd call whichever police are local to you. They can then escalate it to the FBI or whoever if they need to.

[Dorian Gray]

Originally Posted by colivigan I called the phone number provided, and asked for <me>. He said "This is he". I said, "Well this is the real <me>, why are you shopping for expensive cars using my email address?". There was a moment of silence ... then he hung up.

Surreal. Yeah, definitely time for the police to hear about this.

Do you have any idea how they ‘stole your identity’, assuming the Mercedes-Benz guy was right that they did and that they are now trying to export cars in your name?

[turtle]

Originally Posted by colivigan ... But lots of good advice here. I will definitely be looking into my credit reports, and consider signing up for identity theft protection. Turtle, have you been happy with Zander?

I have been very happy with them. Glad you found one you like though. Something is better than nothing with this kind of thing going on. Amazing that you were able to call the guy and get an answer. I'm guessing you spooked him pretty good.

I'd probably call the FBI since this would likely fall into organized crime and multi-state. They might point you elsewhere, but it seems the most logical step first.

Please do keep us posted here. I'm very interested to see if you find out more from this ordeal.

[Windswept]

Originally Posted by colivigan Trying to decide which police, I guess. The phone number was a South Carolina area code, but the quotes have come from all over the country. Maybe FBI or Customs?

One place to call might be the attorney general's office of your state. I think many states have an identity theft/financial fraud division housed in the state attorney general's office.

You can look up this office in the phone book in the blue section for the city, county, state and federal government offices under state attorney general. There might even be a actual listing for id theft there. Some state attorney general's offices used to advertise on tv the phone number to call for id theft inquiries.

But, yeah, since this scam is going on in many states, you will probably call the FBI too. I've called the FBI before at their local office in my city, and they checked out an identity theft issue for me via computer.

About the scammer's email asking for a quote: the scammer doesn't care about actually getting a reply to their request for a quote. What they want is for the dealership to run a credit check (before they send a quote). Once a credit check is run, the scammer calls to ask if an email quote has been sent. If the dealer says 'yes', then the scammer can show up at the dealership ready to buy a car, knowing that the dealer won't bother to run another credit check if he has just run one which showed that you had excellent credit. This helps if the other people across the country are busy doing the same thing. The credit checks are presumably all run on the same day for all the scammers, and at that point, your good credit is still good in all the results coming back to all the dealerships.

I haven't explained any of this very well, and I've made it seem confusing. But it's good that you are taking measures. I'm even wondering if it would be a good idea for you to send a picture of yourself to all these dealerships, in case someone does come in pretending to be you.

[thegeriatric]

Ok it's not a joke, definitely time to involve the police.
Hope it all works out ok.

[colivigan]

@Dorian, I have no idea. So far I have no evidence that they have anything other than my email, and thereby my name since it's FirstName.LastName@gmail.com. It's a private account that I use for friends and personal business. Of course I have a somewhat more obfuscated address for online shenanigans.

My credit report is clean, and TrustedID raises no alerts. I have put a fraud alert on my credit profile with all three agencies. I still have no real proof that a crime has been committed, unless you can call giving the wrong email address identity fraud. Based on previous experience with the local constabulary, I doubt they would give me the time of day on this one.

But I have filed reports with both ICE and the FBI, we'll see if anything comes of those.

Thank you all for the advice.

And Windswept, you have explained things very well and haven't been the least confusing. Thank you!

[Yontsey]

Keep us posted on this. This is very interesting.