That scam has been operating in one form or another here in Canada for some time. My across-street neighbour narrowly missed having it happen to his minivan (luckily his son had stayed home sick that day).

In another variant, watchers scan neighbourhoods for people who leave expensive newer cars in their driveway while they take public transit to work (and where the house is unoccupied all day).

Once the owner had left their house, the scammers call a towing company and claim to be the owner and explain they were in a hurry to get to work, they had to take a cab as the car would not start, and forgot to leave a key behind. Would they please tow the car to such-and-such a garage?

The scammers would rent vacant bays around town for short periods of time and hang an auto shop sign outside. The "garage" would pay the tow driver cash and he would be on his way, none the wiser.

Took quite a while for the police to crack what was going on as the scammers moved neighbourhoods, tow companies and garages all the time. Actually now that I think about it, I believe it was an auto insurance investigator who worked it out first.

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Mac
2002 e320 4matic estate│1985 300d│1980 300td
Previous: 1979 & 1982 & 1983 300sd │ 1982 240d

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22