Theft of units by car carrier scammers
From the June 16, 2025 edition of Automotive News….
Very disturbing for those of us in the wholesale business!!
Bogus car carrier thefts pit dealerships against each other…
In February, Loeber Motors, a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Illinois, bought a 2023 AMG G 63, paying Mercedes-Benz of Laredo in Texas $347,225 for it.
The Laredo store deposited Loeber’s check, put the manufacturer’s statement of origin and title in the mail and arranged with Unlimited Car Carrier Inc. to transport the car in an enclosed truck.
But when Unlimited’s driver showed up to load the car, he initially was told the store couldn’t locate the keys, then was later informed the car was not there. Someone else had picked it up three days earlier, and security camera footage showed a dealership employee handing over the keys to “an unknown individual.”
Loeber Motors, which did not get the vehicle or a refund, sued Mercedes-Benz of Laredo.
“Incredibly, and contrary to common sense standard practices in the automotive industry, Mercedes-Benz Laredo apparently gave possession of the vehicle to a third party without verifying the recipient’s identity,” the complaint said.
Typically, dealerships ask for official identification, transport documentation and matching VINs, the complaint said, and many keep “detailed records of the handoff process, including signatures and time stamps.” But Mercedes-Benz of Laredo apparently lacks documentation or paperwork or a copy of the driver’s license, it said.
The complaint said Mercedes-Benz of Laredo’s general manager acknowledged in a phone call that “we screwed up” but hasn’t returned the payment.
An increasing threat
Jeffrey Kulwin, a lawyer in Chicago for Loeber Motors, told Automotive News, “I don’t think it’s an isolated incident. It illustrates a pattern that dealers and carriers should take seriously.”
In April, a bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers introduced a bill backed by the American Trucking Association to strengthen the federal response to cargo theft, including those fraudsters imitating legitimate companies.
The stolen Mercedes G-Wagon is one of at least three lawsuits filed in the past few months that pit ripped-off dealerships against each other.
In a second recent case, a New Jersey Mercedes-Benz store is suing a South Carolina Mercedes-Benz store over the disappearance of a $75,216 GLE in a dealer-to-dealer transaction.
The complaint said Mercedes-Benz of Myrtle Beach contacted Mercedes-Benz of Paramus to buy the car in mid-April, remitted payment and received the title.
To transport the vehicle, the South Carolina store contracted with co-defendant A&R Logistics, which allegedly subcontracted the job to a company identified only as “Doe Enterprises” and whose driver, named only as “John Doe,” showed up at the New Jersey store, presented some documents and left with the GLE, the complaint said.
Only after the exchange did Mercedes-Benz of Myrtle Beach notify the New Jersey store the subcontractor was fraudulent and shouldn’t be allowed to take the car, the complaint said. Mercedes-Benz of Myrtle Beach then stopped payment on its check and mailed the title back to Mercedes-Benz of Paramus.
Mercedes-Benz of Myrtle Beach General Sales Manager John Andrews said he can’t discuss ongoing lawsuits. A lawyer for Mercedes-Benz of Paramus didn’t respond to requests for comment.
And in a third case, as Automotive News reported, an imposter picked up a $218,000 2023 Ferrari Roma from a Bentley store in Lone Tree, Colo., but never delivered it to the Golden Valley, Minn., store that bought it.
The purchaser, Twin Cities Performance, is suing Bentley Denver and Angel Moving Cars, the trucking company that allegedly dispatched the bogus carrier. Both deny liability in their court filings.
Court documents available so far in these lawsuits don’t detail how the fraudsters hacked into the dealerships’ systems and got away without anyone noticing the drivers’ phony documents.
Everyone loses
In such situations, both selling and buying dealerships are victimized, as are their insurers. Caught in the crossfire are legitimate carriers and drivers, federal and state law enforcement agencies — including the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, which expend investigative resources — and customers who don’t get the vehicles they expected.
“It’s not just the Mercedes and the Ferraris that are susceptible to being put in a container and sent overseas,” said Mark Anderson, a senior adviser and the recently retired CEO at United Road Services, a Plymouth, Mich., car transport company. He formerly chaired the Automobile Carriers Conference, an industry group.
“It could be a Lexus or Toyota. It doesn’t have to be a $200,000 vehicle,” Anderson said.
How scams happen
Phishing attacks and social engineering to retrieve key information are escalating, said fraud investigation specialist Jake MacDonald of Super Dispatch, an automotive transportation management platform based in Kansas City, Mo.
“It’s accelerated because it seems to have a high success rate,” with some running full-time phishing operations that know “exactly what to say” to look legit, MacDonald said. They can log in as a “good guy” and quickly start booking loads.
“Why wouldn’t you [as a shipper] believe them?” he said.
Rachelle Loyear, vice president of integrated security solutions at Allied Universal, an international physical security firm in Irvine, Calif., said the scams aren’t anything new.
“It is facilitated by the same phishing and hacking tactics people have been taking to hack any account for decades now,” she said.
For example, fraudsters can “socially engineer” people to find passwords and network contacts, then use artificial intelligence with the illegally gleaned information to create authentic-looking bills of lading and other documents.
They then use “that combination of cyber- and plain-old human fraud to get somebody to release that very expensive item,” Loyear said, and get what they want: “Your vehicle on their truck instead of the truck it’s supposed to be getting on.”
Anderson said crooks in some instances breach a load board — an online, virtual dispatch marketplace that connects customers needing to ship vehicles with carriers willing to transport them.
“When Carrier A gets a cyberattack and is breached and its credentials are stolen, [the fraudsters] will go onto a load board with those credentials and say they are available and identify where the cars are and pick them up,” Anderson said. “That’s where the disaster happens.”
Stolen cars are usually taken to another location where the thieves remove trackers and move them on.
“I’ve seen them go out the border south of Texas,” MacDonald said. “I’ve seen them put in a shipping container out of Florida. If they go to the West Coast, they get [a new VIN] and sell like a completely new vehicle.
“It seems a lot of Middle East and Central Europe companies come up.”
What dealerships need to do
Dealerships need to protect themselves, experts say.
Loyear said preventative measures include tight security and verification procedures, training of store personnel to strictly adhere to those protocols and recognize red flags for fraud, and use of surveillance technology such as cameras and digital tracking.
Those measures can combine to create a “holistic end-to-end security system of people, process and technology,” she said. “You need to follow procedures and checks at every step all the way.”
Anderson said an essential step to combat fraud is for “the entire [trucking] industry, the entire supply chain, to quit relying on paper for documentation because it can be manipulated and copied. Everyone has to go electronic” — not only for bills of lading but also so that selling stores can match drivers’ faces with their commercial driver’s license and match trucks with their U.S. Department of Transportation numbers.
Even though it’s not uncommon for vehicles to be delivered late for reasons such as bad weather or a truck breakdown, dealerships shouldn’t delay contacting police about a suspected fraudulent pickup because it doesn’t take long for thieves to make the stolen vehicles disappear, MacDonald said.
“These guys are very efficient,” he said. “They don’t need days.”
