We’ve written warning articles before—don’t buy an RV sight-unseen. But we’ve never seen an RV sales scam like this one. A very clever scammer not only flim-flams RV buyers, they’ve also stolen the identity of a legitimate RV dealer to build up trust in their victims.
Almost same name, same address, phone gives it away
Last November, Dayreli Rodriguez says she started getting phone calls asking about motorhomes her dealership had listed for sale. That’s great if you’re an RV dealer—at least if you’re a dealer that sells motorhomes. But Dayreli’s outfit, BBA RV and Auto Sale in Panama City, Florida, doesn’t sell motorized units. What could be happening?
A look at the internet reveals all. Check out the web page of Dayreli’s business, on the top. Now compare it to the one on the bottom. The business names are almost the same. BBA RV’s and Auto Sale versus BBA RV’s and Auto Sale LLC. Their addresses match, too.
But those phone numbers—certainly different. Dayreli Rodriguez’ phone number is listed in the 850 area code. An internet source says, “The 850 area code generally covers the northern portion of Florida, known as the panhandle, and communities such as Pensacola, Panama City and Tallahassee.” But the phone number for the phony web site? “Area code 727 covers Pinellas County, Florida (including St. Petersburg, Clearwater, and Pinellas Park, among many other municipalities, but excluding the majority of Oldsmar), and the western third of Pasco County (including Port Richey, New Port Richey, and Holiday).” Right state—but NOT Panama City.
Elaborate, and hard to discern, RV sales scam
It’s decidedly a clever, elaborate, and hard to spot scam. Potential customers from out of area who happen on the website could certainly be forgiven if they don’t recognize the area code difference. And if they used some amount of “due diligence” they might have done an internet search and turned up this entry from Bizapedia, which says of the firm NOT owned by Dayreli that it “is a Florida Limited Liability Company filed on April 7, 2022. The company’s filing status is listed as Active and its File Number is L22000167545.” Sounds legit—after all, they’re registered with the state. But a more skeptical eye might also spot this statement on the same site: “The addresses and contacts on this webpage are hidden from the general public at the instruction of the company.”
But if it walks like a duck, watch out. Dayreli recently told a local media outlet about an experience she had. This month alone, a California man turned up at Dayreli’s real dealership. “He told me, ‘Hey I want to see a motor home that I saw on the internet. I have an appointment,’” Rodriguez said. “It’s like they told him to come here so that he could see it and I say oh no I hope you didn’t pay anything because it’s a scam. And he said too late. He had already paid $16,000 and he lost a flight from California to here for something that didn’t exist.”
Identity and reputation stolen
As if it’s not enough to rip off unsuspecting RV buying-wanta bes. This RV sales scam has also cost Dayreli Rodriguez. “These people have everything of ours,” Rodriguez said. “They have our license; they have our IRS number. They have everything. Everything, they have it. Everything that you need for a business they have. The license, the company’s social. They use my name; they use my direction to do accounts with the banks and do bad things.”
While there’s no dollar-and-cents figure to put on the cost to Rodriguez, certainly the toll on her company’s reputation must be intense. So far, state officials say potential customers have lost at least $80,000 in this RV sales scam. Who knows just how much more has been spirited away by the bad guys, with embarrassed victims not even reporting their losses?
Mind you, this is an ongoing scam. The phony company website, www.bbarvauto.com was still up and operating at the time of this report. Rodriguez’ real website is www.bbarvs.co. The same old rules apply: Don’t buy an RV sight-unseen. Don’t put down more “hold” money than you can afford to lose. Normally, we’d tell folks be sure to check the Better Business Bureau for complaints, or use their “scam tracker,” here. In this case, however, all we got was an error message.
##RVT1146b
The lawyer I’ve slept with for 55 years says criminal charges can be brought. I hope they are doing this and contacting state wide media about the scam. Caveat emptor I read RVtravel.com for 12 years before purchasing my RV. Thank you RVtravels.com for being there for us
Criminal charges can be pursued, however; how does he propose to find any suspects?
They could start by doing a whois search and seeing who might be contacted to help shut down the site.
Crooks who are good will surely choose the option to hide the whois info. At that point, law enforcement would have to be the ones who go after the whois info as part of their investigation. I bought a Class A a couple of years ago and also a fifth wheel 15 years ago. Both were used vehicles. In each case, I went in person to look at them. I didn’t give a down payment. I told the owner that I am a serious buyer and would come back with a check to pay for it. I also told them that if a serious buyer came and the seller wanted to sell it to them before me, then I would have no issue or heartache. If I lose out on the vehicle, that was the risk I was willing to take to not be scammed.
Thank you, Russ and Tina! 🙂 This is outrageous. Surely if they stole her identity, then the state should shut the website down. The state should also issue arrest warrants for all those people whose names are associated with the paperwork for the fake company. I am dismayed that Florida is allowing this to happen after the real company and people discovered their identities had been stolen. Yikes! 🙁
I have known Florida to be the land of scams and cons for a long time. Evidently this revelation is new to others.
In these types of scams, there is no paperwork or real name use I am sure. It is nearly impossible to find out who is responsible in these types of things. It could be someone in an different country entirely using the internet as a tool.
If it sounds too good to be true, perhaps it is not true.
Never ceases to amaze me the amount of people who are out there finding ways to scam, steal and take honest people’s money rather than go out and make an honest living like the majority of people do.
the fake website is actually much more polished than the legitimate one. I can see how folks can be swindled
A similar website scam or hack occurred at our rv park. I had a .net address and switched it over to a .com. While browsing all our park mentions on google I came across the .net address still there even after closing it out and all our parks content and info incl ph # was still listed but the address was strangely missing and they added to “THEIR” RV park with our name – several sections advertising the BDSM lifestyle in their Park. (google it if you don’t know the acronym.) I tried to contact them via their contact us page form but never got a response and none of their other links worked either. I reported the fraudulent site to the ftc but haven’t received anything back from them.
The flip-side of this scam is if you’re selling an RV and somebody texts saying they ‘like what they read, price sounds good & they want to buy it. They’ll “send a cashiers check and when it clears, their agent will pick up the RV.” DO NOT FALL FOR THIS. Invariably the so-called cashiers check is either a forgery or drawn on another person’s (hacked) account. In either case, the bank will want their $$ back when the forgery/counterfeit/theft instrument is dishonored. But too late – you will have seen your RV drive away days or weeks earlier. Get cash.