Best Scam I’ve Ever Seen!

Kirill Zubovsky
2 min readApr 6, 2013

TL;DR: Car owners, be ware of the scam that comes in your snail mail.

A few days ago I received the above letter in my snail mail (see post header). It came in a way that high-school transcripts and tax forms come, with sealed edges that you need to tear off in order to open.I drive a Toyota Camry Hybrid, so all seemed right and I opened the letter.

What followed was a very formal-looking letter, the type you would normally get from Toyota after a regular checkup.

I said this was a scam, and it was.There were only one red flag in this letter - the car is actually owned by my fiance, so there was no way Toyota would have send mail to me. Secondary, the lack of a any direct references to a specific Toyota dealership was alarming.

After quickly googling for a provided phone number, we found that indeed this was a scam and there seemed to be plenty of people falling for it. When you call 1-800-639-9440 , they try sell you insurance indeed, but people are not usually willing to fork over a large sum, so they convince you to submit a deposit of a few hundred dollars, which some do.

Needless to say, you never again see your money or your new insurance. Beware.

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Kirill Zubovsky

Entrepreneur, Dad. Currently working on SmashNotes.com and a few other projects. For details, check out kirillzubovsky.com