www.atra.com
BEWARE: Towing Scam
Over the past serveral months there has been
reporting of phone calls to ATRA Member shops about a towing scam. Many members have reported that a third party
such as a phone operator has been calling to report that they have a hearing impaired caller on the phone that wants to send their vehicle to the shop for repairs. This sounds innocent and you would like to help
Car Care Month Creates New Opportunities for ATRA Members
April was Car Care Month, and
the caller, as most people would like to do for their potential customers.
Why is this a scam?
The purpose of the phone call is they give you a
two ATRA Members from two different states took advantage of the opportunity to bolster their businesses. Larry Bloodworth of Certified
credit card number and ask you to charge a sum of money on their card for the towing company. Your shop would then be expected to take your
own money and send it to the phony towing company. Your credit card processor then calls you to inform
Transmissions in West Jordan, Utah, and ATRA Board Member Donny Caccamise of DMC Transmissions in Ventura, California, each put on their own Car Care Clinics. Car Care Clinics are a terrific way
you that the credit card you charged from the caller was a stolen card and the charges are reversed on your merchant account. You have now sent “good” money to a company
and are not able to recover your funds. You’ve been scammed!
of promoting your shop in the com- munity. Shop owners get a chance to meet with potential customers from all walks of life, and give them a chance to become familiar with the services their shop has to offer. Every consumer was presented
good people end up at a loss without their hard earned money. ATRA Members have been aware of this scam
with a car care booklet and several giveaways, such as a tire gauge, a pen and pencil, and coupons for special dis- counts on common service items. And the shops performed free
since early on in its development. The members have taken advantage of their membership benefits to discuss issues such as these that they face in their shops on the ATRA Member What’s Working discussion forum, a forum dedicated for ATRA Members.
48-point vehicle inspections on con- sumers’ vehicles, which included checking the tires and tire pressures, brakes, belts, hoses, and much more. ATRA Board Member Laura
Here are some of the discussions relating to this topic from ATRA Members on the What’s Working Forum:
“I receive a phone call this morning from an operator for the deaf, they wanted a car transmission repair and wanted to give me a credit card over the phone for a thousand dollars, he said it was for his mother's car. I informed the operator that I would not take a credit card number until I was able to see the vehicle and diagnose it properly. At that
Wilson provided Certified Trans- missions with everything she used for her clinic, which she received from Stevie and Nancy LaValle for her Ladies Car Care Clinic. “I’d like to thank Laura for all her
help making our clinic a success” said Larry. “We set two appointments for today. I can’t be sure whether they’ll turn into anything, but you never know.” At DMC’s clinic, Donny invit-
ed the local police department, who brought their K9 unit to meet the public
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There are many scams that take place daily and
*** CAR CARE CLINICS! ***
time the operator said the other party had disconnected. Thanks for all the reports I have seen in the past; I knew it was a scam.”
Chris Gerber, Transolution
“I had it done to me last week.Thanks to the forum I was aware of what was going on.”
Orville, Razorback Transmission
“You get a call from a supposed relay operator (assisting the deaf) and the caller requests your email address to communicate with you directly. It happened to me and the email address resembled a spammers addy. When I requested ID info, the caller hung up. That was my version. There simply are no depths to which this scum will not descend to. Keep your eyes open!”
Certified Transmissions in West Jordan, Utah
Nationwide Transmission
“What happened with us was a call from a relay operator and the person had an uncle in New York whose vehicle was not working and they wanted to tow it all the way to our shop in Abilene! He was going to give me a credit card to charge $1,000.00 to and then when the Uncle got here he would take care of the rest. I simply said we are unable to do that and hung up. They tried a similar thing with a florist shop and our BBB sent out warnings to all local business.”
Certified Transmissions
Emi Chavira, Big Country Transmission
“I got a relay call for "the transmission in my Uncles Toyota Camry failed and he left it to get fixed. Can you charge my card $2500.00 and go to Western Union and send all but $500.00 back so I can pay the towing company here in NY to tow the car to you in Oregon." I told the relay operator it was a scam. He said they hung up.”
Jason Faust, Bradshaw's Transmission Annex
Then the member shared an email he had received an hour later only to find out that another member received the exact same email!
Thanks to the discussions on the forum, ATRA Members have been able to avoid this scam in their business.
If you would like more information on ATRA Membership, visit our website at
www.atra.com/membership
Certified Transmissions in West Jordan, Utah
GEARS May/June 2010
GEARS July 2009
Certified Transmissions Giveaways
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