The Car Wrap Scam is not as common as it used to be, but it still shows up sometimes. In it, the prospective victim either sees an ad or is texted with an opportunity to advertise for a well-known brand. The payment is usually a couple hundred per week. You will get payment from the brand, and will use part of the money to pay a given installer. Sounds like a dream, right? Advertise for a brand, get money for just using your car/vehicle for advertising.

It is, of course, a scam.

This kind of car wrapping was popular 20-30 years ago and quickly faded away. There are still legit companies that offer this kind of advertising… but it’s not as much, maybe $100 per month at best. Some of them apparently don’t pay at all unless they see results (someone using a QR code or similar, for example, that allows the advertiser to track engagement). In any case, it’s usually handled by specialized advertising companies, who pay an installer directly for wrapping your vehicle.

In the scam version, you are paid with a check or similar that contains your first week’s payment plus the amount you need to pay a certain installer by means of something unrecoverable. This installer does not exist, of course. The money you pay to the “installer” (scammer) is gone forever, and the original payment will be removed from your bank account as fake or stolen.

How to protect yourself
This is another case of “if it seems to be too good to be true, it is.” Ask yourself: why would this company want to pay me so much for driving my car around with advertising when they could do it for so much cheaper?

Also, any time someone says “We’ll pay more than you need, just send on the payment to a third party”, especially when you’re supposed to send it via an unrecoverable means, is a red flag. If they offer this, ask why they can’t pay the installer instead (which will probably be something like “well, they’re local to you” - which makes no sense as checks are usually good throughout the country, and sometimes other countries will take checks in your local currency).