My experience with a recent scamming attempt and how you can protect your information when financing a car purchase

My experience with a recent scamming attempt and how you can protect your information when financing a car purchase My Car Guru Podcast · Jun 8, 2026

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21:55

Car

Ford Mustang

The 1966 Ford Mustang is an older sports car made by Ford. People talk about it a lot because it’s a famous model from the 1960s, and the exact history and condition can be important. If you own one, you may want to learn where it came from and how it’s been kept.

Car

Ford F150

The Ford F-150 is a large pickup truck made by Ford. It’s the kind of vehicle people use for hauling and everyday tasks, and it’s common enough that you might recognize it by sight. In the podcast context, it’s mentioned because the person realized the truck was an F-150, not another brand/model they initially thought it was.

Car

Ford Bronco

The Ford Bronco is Ford’s off-road SUV. It’s designed to handle dirt and mud, and this episode is talking about different Bronco versions—one more luxurious and one more rugged and easy to clean.

Term

insulation

Insulation in a car helps reduce noise. It can make the cabin quieter by blocking or absorbing sounds coming from outside or from the vehicle itself.

Term

quilted leather seats

Quilted leather seats are leather seats with a stitched pattern that looks fancy and can feel a bit more cushioned. It’s a luxury interior upgrade.

Term

cooled seats

Cooled seats are seats that help keep you from getting too hot. They usually use airflow (and sometimes other cooling methods) to make the seat feel cooler.

Term

heated seats

Heated seats are seats with built-in warming. When it’s cold, the seat heats up so you’re more comfortable.

Term

gear shift

The gear shift is the lever or control you use to choose gears like Park or Drive. The host is pointing out that the Philson branding is shown right by that control.

Term

muddin'

“Muddin’” just means going off-road through mud. The host is saying their Bronco is set up so you can get dirty and then wash it out easily.

Term

drain plugs

Drain plugs are small openings that let water drain out. On an off-road Bronco setup, they help you rinse out mud and water from the floor area.

Term

Sasquatch package

The Sasquatch package is an off-road upgrade bundle for the Ford Bronco. It’s meant to make the SUV better at rough trails by improving things like tires and clearance.

LIVE

Hey folks, Lenny Lawson, the car guru and possible scamming victim.

Yes, I got a call from my bank yesterday.

This was one of the main, I guess a VP at the bank that I use, one of the banks.

And he said, Lenny, don't be alarmed.

I said, okay, you know, when somebody says that, it's just like when your wife calls

and she said, everything's okay.

She wasn't hurt.

And then she tells you what it was that happened on a car wreck one time from my youngest daughter.

But yeah, this was not as serious.

This was a banker.

And he said, Lenny, a person called claiming to be you and they wanted information on your bank account.

And so we start doing the normal questioning and answering.

Here's what the report said.

Now this report was filed by the person who took the call.

A person called claiming to be Lenny Lawson.

I asked what the last four digits of his social security number were and he told me and I'm not going to say the number, but it was correct.

There's the last four digits of my social security number.

And then I asked what the name was again and he said Leonard Lawson.

He had told me something about an insurance check that was supposed to be deposited into the account last Tuesday.

So I asked which account and he said it was for Gateway 4, which we don't have a Gateway 4 account at that particular bank.

We have other accounts for other entities that I own, but not for Gateway 4.

So anyway, I'll continue.

I looked through all the account and none were labeled as that, so I asked if he had the last four of the account number.

He said not off the top of my head, but it's the operating account, he said.

I proceeded to ask him his date of birth and he misunderstood me and said that my place of birth is Knoxville.

Folks, I wasn't born in Knoxville.

I was born in South Charleston, West Virginia.

I asked for the date of birth again and he said, sorry, I misunderstood you.

It is and he gave them my birthday, which was correct.

I asked him what his phone number was and he said, well, I have a business phone and a personal, which one do you want?

She said, yes, just give me the personal and he gave them my mom's former phone number at her residence.

And then he gave her my cell phone number, which I throw out there all the time on this particular program.

Who knows?

Maybe he's a listener trying to scam me.

So his area code started with 561.

So apparently if you're out there, we know that you live in Northern Virginia or at least the phone number is going through there.

So then she transferred the call to one of the bank officers, also a female, and this is what her report said.

I answered the phone to see if I could help.

I thanked him for his patience.

I apologize and explained that we would need more information to verify since he was calling from a different number.

He then called me an idiot and said that I was wasting his time.

I told him that I would speak to his account officer.

He told me that women should not be working because they are so dumb.

Women have low IQ and that she needs to start taking omega threes.

I said, excuse me?

Can you imagine?

And he said, see, you're dumb.

You're nothing but an idiot.

Back in my day, which makes me think he was an older dude, it was better because women didn't work.

I told him that he could speak with my manager or his account officer and he hung up the phone.

I sure hope that we were not speaking with one of our customers.

I haven't been able to speak with any of the numbers on file, which she had tried to call some of the numbers that are listed on the file.

This person was not me.

Absolutely not.

But it is kind of scary, folks, because, you know, our information is out there.

I was trying to track down a guy that used to own this 1966 Ford Mustang that I now own.

Well, I was trying to get more information on him.

I know that he's passed away.

I know that he purchased the car when he was 24 years old because I have all of the paperwork.

I have all the original tags, the original bill of sale from the dealership in Santa Rosa, California.

I have such detailed information.

I'm grateful for that.

But I just wanted to see if I could find out, you know, where he lived, if I could contact any of his family or anything.

I thought they might like pictures of the car or something, but I was unsuccessful.

But I did find his last mailing address.

I found a bunch of phone numbers and it asked if I wanted more information.

I could get it.

I think his date of birth was in there, too.

That's right. Yeah, his date of birth and his date of death.

People can find just about anything they want about you online.

There are certain firewalls that they cannot get through.

But one of the reasons I bring this up is because when you go out and buy a car, especially if you buy it on credit,

you're providing that dealership with a whole lot of personal information that does not need to be shared.

And I have seen my salespeople over the years.

We have to remind them about this occasionally.

But when they're sitting at their desk in the showroom, which is kind of out in the open,

and they're requesting information from a customer to complete a credit application,

they need to lower their voices or go into a private office.

But you don't sit there and say, what's your social?

What's your date of birth?

How much money do you make?

Use your head.

So we tell ourselves people that and they're pretty good about it now.

What happens to a credit application when it leaves their hands?

Where does it go?

Now, hopefully, you've been on a test drive at this point.

You've selected the vehicle that you're interested in.

You're ready to talk numbers.

And many times, they have to pull your credit to be able to give you a final monthly payment

because they don't know what interest rate you're going to qualify for.

So they take a credit application.

Where does it go from there?

See, you don't know and you don't even ask.

I would say, okay, where's that? Where are you going with that?

I'm going to give it to my sales manager and he's going to load the information into our computer

and then we will send it to the banks to see what kind of interest rate we can get you.

Okay, great. Where does it go after that?

Well, we go into your credit file to the finance office.

When they are done with it, it will be taken to our main office, which is behind a key lock

and secured and then once the deal is completely posted and accounting,

it will go upstairs in another secure area and that's where we will store it for seven years

and then we have it all, all those records are all shredded.

How does that make you feel?

Now, there's not one salesperson in a thousand that knows or cares for that matter

what happens to your credit application.

Once he has completed it and you've signed it and he hands it over to the sales manager,

he could care less and you don't know if he takes a picture of it.

You know, if he's a criminal at night, a salesperson during the day or a scammer, I should say,

takes a picture of your information on his phone and then turns it over to the sales manager.

You don't know that. I don't either.

That's why you need to know the people that you're dealing with.

I mean, when you go a couple of states over or a couple of cities over to trade cars with somebody

and you're given a total stranger all of your personal financial information

and he's not like some professional.

He's not an accountant.

He's not a vice president of a bank.

No, he was flipping burgers two weeks ago

and now he's taken down all of your personal financial information.

How comforting is that?

He knows your social security number, how much money you make, where your house is,

what your job is, what your mortgage date of birth is

and you have no idea what he's doing with it or what will happen to that information.

That's why it's important to deal with people that you know and trust

that have some degree of accountability, some type of accountability relationship with you

that you can trust.

I guess anybody can turn into a crook,

but it's less likely if you know them on a first name basis

and they live in the same community

and you just get that feeling that they are professional folks.

I mean we buy insurance to cover us for any type of fraudulent activity that happens on our watch

but really that doesn't help you that much.

You might get a nice fat check.

That's why I recommend that people sign up for LifeLock.

This is not an advertisement for LifeLock

but you need something, some kind of firewall between you and the crooks

and that's the first thing I did was pull up to see if there were any alerts that I had missed

on my LifeLock account.

You know I don't want somebody to be able to take out some kind of a mortgage on my house

that I could be held liable for.

That's why I check my alerts.

I have my house listed with LifeLock, my home address.

Anybody tries to put a lien on my house, they'll send me an alert

and I'll find out about it.

And if one slips through their hands or through their oversight,

then they have a million dollars worth of insurance to back it up.

So protect thyself.

Maybe that's a proverb.

I'll be back in just one minute.

Okay, so just a little bit more on this.

If you're out in the open at a dealership in a showroom, it's not a private place.

Before you give your credit information, just ask the salesperson if you could go to a private office.

Don't do out there in front of everybody else.

There could be somebody listening on the other side of the wall.

And then just ask them, okay, what happens next with my credit information?

And they probably have never been asked that question because I guess it's an assumption that, well, he assumes that you know.

But there's too many times that salespeople assume that customers understand what happens behind the scenes at a car dealership.

And they just don't.

They shouldn't have to.

But these are different times and I think it's important to protect your data, your information, because somebody could harm you if you didn't.

Okay, speaking of harming me, I was driving to work this morning.

And there was a guy, okay, so the four lane road that I used to get to the dealership, it's Highway 11E.

We call it the Andrew Johnson Highway here.

But I was headed to work and there was this guy plastered to the back of my vehicle.

And at first I thought he was driving a ram truck, which would have made sense.

But no, he was in an F-150.

I said, well, this is weird.

Normally people who drive F-150s don't tailgate.

I know, I'm being somewhat judgmental.

But anyway, he was driving F-150 and I couldn't even see the logo, the Ford logo.

He looked angry.

Just had a sour look on his face.

I could see him in my rear view mirror.

And I was just sitting there saying, get off my rear end.

So I changed lanes.

He got behind me again.

I don't know what point he was trying to prove.

Finally, I turned off to go into the gas station.

He went on down the road.

I don't know what his problem was.

I don't care.

That irritates me more than any single thing a person can do.

Even more so than not having or not knowing how to use a median cut.

You know how some people will turn the wrong way in a median on a four-lane road.

That little median cut is just like a miniature road and you're always supposed to go to the right-hand side.

A lot of people don't understand that and I know it is irritating.

Let me ask you this though, because I ask myself this.

What habits do I have, driving habits, that could be irritating to other people?

And I had to think because I think I'm a pretty good driver.

Now one thing I cannot do in the city of Tuscalem, which is really not a city.

It's a little town where basically all that's there is Tuscalem University now.

And my barber shop, and that's about it.

But the speed limit through Tuscalem is 20 miles an hour.

Folks, I can't coast 20 miles an hour.

I can't do anything at 20 miles an hour.

But they have these little cameras that if you go over, you'll get a ticket in the mail.

And they also have these very irritating signs.

It must have a radar detector on it because it knows how fast you're going.

It shows the speed.

And if you're going over 20 miles an hour, it says, slow down in big red letters.

And it makes me want to just mow that sign down.

Because, I mean, so you want me to go 19 miles an hour?

That irritates me.

But what do I do that irritates people?

Okay, so I thought hard about this.

And it's usually my wife calling me out on things.

And it used to be a bigger speeder than I am now.

I mean, I can't go 20 miles an hour.

But I will go anywhere from 5 to 10 miles an hour over the speed limit just about all the time.

Can't help myself.

But I also realize that you probably won't get a speeding ticket unless you're in a school zone or something like that,

which I definitely don't speed in school zones.

But one thing I get called out on and do is if I'm on a two-lane road,

and it's twisty and I can see far enough in the distance,

then I will get in the other lane and cut the curve, you know, like I'm on a racetrack.

I can't help myself.

It helps me experience what it would be like to be on a racetrack.

I guess I don't know why I do it.

Maybe it's a shorter distance too.

I cut the distance.

No, I do not always stay on my lane on a two-lane road when there's curves.

So that's something I do that could be irritating to somebody.

I don't always use my turn signals.

I know I should.

But if there's nobody behind me, then what the heck?

You know, and my wife says, well, it's a habit.

You should always use your turn signals.

Okay, my dad was the first one to jump on me on that.

But what do you do?

We've been talking about me long enough.

What do you do?

Do you run red lights?

You know, a lot of people look at a yellow light, caution light, as just a suggestion.

You've got one or two choices.

Mesh the gas or hit the brake.

Now, if I'm towing a big trailer and I'm relatively close, it's marginal.

It'll actually turn red by the time I'm underneath it.

But if I'm pulling a big heavy trailer, I'm not going to try to stop.

I probably should, but the problem is, if I'm going to have to lock it down, I'm not stopping.

I'm accelerating if it turns yellow.

And I'll get chastised for that occasionally as well.

See, we're still talking about me.

What do you do?

Do you use a median cut properly?

Do you always use a turn signal?

Do you ride in the fast lane all the time, even when you're not going fast?

You just like that lane better, the one on the left-hand side?

It's supposed to be on the right-hand side.

The right-hand side is where you're supposed to drive, and when you want to pass somebody,

you get in the left-hand lane, pass them, then you get back over to the right.

Can you imagine how much better driving on the interstate would be if people would just follow that rule?

But in this fast-paced society that we live in, everybody's a race car driver.

Everybody has to be in the fast lane.

It's almost like it's an ego thing.

That's what they're going to do.

Is that you?

Well, stop it.

Remember what you learned in Driver's Ed?

I know they don't have Driver's Ed anymore.

That's why I do the teen driver experience here at Gateway Ford and Gateway Nissan at my dealership.

I just think it's needed to educate people to remind them the responsibilities that we have on the road.

And it helps me too.

It says, okay, Wendy, stop doing that.

Start doing that.

I guess everybody needs a little introspection every now and then.

You know what the definition of introspection is?

It is the deliberate examination of one's own conscious thoughts, feelings, and mental processes.

I definitely need that.

I'll be back in just a minute.

I was telling my salespeople today about the all-new 2027 Ford Bronco Philson edition.

I said, does anybody in this sales meeting know what Philson is?

Nobody raised their hand.

Do you know what it is?

Well, apparently Philson is a company that makes bags like duffel bags and briefcases.

And things to put your travel in, carry your stuff in, it's mostly canvas.

They do have some leather products.

I don't know if they make clothes or not, but I don't know anybody that's ever heard of them.

But the Ford Motor Company has decided to make their most expensive, most luxurious Ford Bronco

because they believe that that's an important segment that the Bronco does not address.

In a partnership with a company called Philson, so it's supposed to be really quiet, too.

They're putting more insulation in it.

It's going to have quilted leather seats.

You could already get heated seats in a Bronco, but now you'll be able to get cooled seats.

Oh, and it also has a badge next to the gear shift that says Philson.

I know you're dying to get one.

You know, I was at Mahoney's one time, Mahoney's Outfitters in Johnson City, Tennessee,

and I was walking around, you know, like I do.

I just go in there, go to the gun department and go downstairs and look at fishing equipment.

And I walked past this rack and had a bunch of bags on it.

I said, hmm, what's this?

Philson.

So, you know, if Mahoney's stock said it must be good, right?

So if you're dying to get a luxurious Ford Bronco, which I just bought a Ford Bronco,

mine's not luxurious.

Matter of fact, all the seats are vinyl and all the floors are covered with rubber

so that if you get really filthy when you're out muddin', then you can just turn a hose in on it.

It's got little drain plugs that you can pull out in front of the passengers

and you just twist it off and the water just flows right to the ground.

So, no, it is not fancy at all, but I love it.

It's a Badlands edition with the Sasquatch package.

I wonder if you'll be able to get a Philson with Sasquatch.

I don't know.

I know you're going to be on pins and needles waiting to find out.

Well, folks, thanks for listening to this edition of My Car Guru.

Protect your personal information.

Be careful who you give it to.

Give it to somebody that you know truly believes that it's as important as you do.

And I'll see you on the next edition of My Car Guru.

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21:55

Ford Mustang

Ford F150

Ford Bronco

insulation

quilted leather seats

cooled seats

heated seats

gear shift

muddin'

drain plugs

Sasquatch package

About this episode

Original notes