A fake Hertz employee defrauded an Ohio woman out of $630 in gift cards

A new type of scam is now emerging, and it apparently involves fake scammers Hertz agents ask customers for gift cards.

I’m talking to Cleveland.comthe anonymous woman explained that she had rented a car from Hertz and was behind on her payments. The company remotely bricked her rental car until she paid off at least some of the money owed. The car was parked for about a week.

The woman searched the Internet for a Hertz customer service number, found one that looked legitimate, and called. She didn’t know it at the time, but the number she found actually belonged to the scammer and had nothing to do with Hertz or its customer service department. The person on the other end of the line, identified only as a “male,” told her to pay off the debt by purchasing a $312 Walmart gift card.

It must have felt like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The woman purchased a Walmart gift card for $320, called the same number and provided the appropriate information to the person on the other end of the line. After allegedly writing down the details of the first card, the scammer told the woman she couldn’t accept it because it was $8 over the amount owed. He asked her to purchase a second gift card for exactly $312, which she did. She called a third time, the scammer accepted the second card and promised to refund the $320 when Hertz picked up the car.

You can guess how this story will end. Someone posing as a Hertz agent got $632 for free, and the woman still had a brick car in the driveway.

Police asked the woman to contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and report the fraud Cleveland.com. There is no word on whether the scammer has been identified, although the line the woman called has been disconnected. Hertz did not comment on the fraud.

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