con artist at work: Bloomingdale resident victim of the "Whobbly Wheel" scam near the Home Depot

See this message from a Bloomingdale resident:

ALERT!  ALERT!  CON-ARTIST CRIMINAL ON THE PROWL IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD!!!!!

        

It was Thursday evening around 7:00pm, I had just left Home Depot and was heading home going west on Rhode Island Avenue. I was stopped at a red light one block from Home Depot, when an African-American man in white overalls and painter's cap pulled up next to me in a white beat-up car.  I did not take note of what type of car he was driving.  He motioned me to roll-down my window, and I did to see what he wanted.  He gestured towards my front passenger tire and said that he had noticed that it was too wobbly and looks like it was about to fall off and has been trying to get my attention to let me know.  He then said that he was a car mechanic could fix it and asked me to pull over to the curb.  I was very apprehensive but since it was not too dark and there was a lot of people and traffic around it would be safe.  He parked behind me and came over to my passenger side window, he was very polite and cautious as to not alarm me.  He handed me a business card and said that he was a mechanic that worked for an Audi/Benz dealership.  He said that he was headed home and it was a good thing that he noticed the problem with my tire.  He asked me to come out of the car to look at the problem with my tire.  We both sat next to the tire and he tugged on it and it was actually lose.  Then he walked me over to the driver side front tire and tugged on it. It was pretty tight and solid.  He asked if I had hit any pot-holes lately.  Well it is winter and it had been snowing a lot so the chances are that most drives would have hit a pot-hole at some point or another.  I told him I had hit one and it was a big one.  He then said that, that would do it.  It would losen my tire but that he could fix it but that he would need my assistance.   He said that dealerships would usually charge around $375 to do such a job but he'd fix it for me for half the price at $175.  I told him I did not have that kind of cash on me.  He said that I could drive over to a bank nearby and he'd follow me and I could pay him then.  He said that he trusted me that I wouldn't drive off and stiff him.  I told him I would do no such thing.  Then he told me to get in behind the wheel and instructed me to turn the wheel in a certain direction when he says so and to turn it all the way to the right and hold when he said so again.  I complied.  After several times of turning the wheel as he was instructing, he came up and said that he fixed it.  I got out and checked the tire and it was indeed very tight.  So I thanked him, and drove over to a bank near by and he followed me.  He pulled up next to me in the parking lot and I got out and instructed him to stay in his car and I'll go get the cash for him.  He asked that I should consider giving him a bit more for saving my life.  I withdrew $200 and gave it him and thanked him.  I was shaken thinking of what might have happened had he not fixed the problem for me as I drive on the interstate and beltway to get to work every day.  The next day I called my family mechanic and told him what happened.  He said that it was impossible for the tire to get lose from pot holes.  He told me to bring in the car so he can check it.  I did that following weekend.  I got underneath the car with him and he showed me exactly how the axel and all its parts were designed and built and there was no way in hell that my tire could have come lose.  I told him that it was lose because I saw it with my own eyes.  He then removed the hub-cap on the same tire and loosened the lug-nuts and the tire wiggled as it had done that night on Rhode Island Ave.  He said that it was probably a criminal doing this in darkened parking lots and making money off unsuspecting victims. I then pulled out the business card from my wallet to show it to him that the guy was a legitimate mechanic only to realize that on the business card, which belonged to a dealership, the person's name was blacked out.  I felt like a complete idiot.

                         

I recommend if such incident were to happen to neighbors, it is best to pull over and as the person fixes your tire, CALL THE POLICE.  You definitely want the lug-nuts to your tires returned and installed, it would be dangerous to ignore the criminal and drive off leaving him with in possession of critical parts of your car.  But hopefully the criminal will be eliminated from the streets and that people will be aware of this type of criminal activities.