Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Con Men React to Six Figure Rent-A-Car Scam

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Con Men React to Six Figure Rent-A-Car Scam

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He said, you've got a person on the inside of my company that's turning, giving you information, and exploiting our customers. He said, if you give that person up, I guarantee you immunity that you will not be arrested or charged. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I am, what happened? And this is Isaac. Do I introduce myself or no? This is my first time. So you got to tell me what to and not to do. All right.

Yeah, please. easy easy so so basically uh you've you've been you're you're basically a fraudster is that what you're you're that's my unofficial title yeah so basically a fraud so you've been locked up multiple times how many times you've been locked up in prison in state or federal um i've locked up probably about eight times in state or federal or both um well i've only locked up one time in federal um multiple time in state so you know that's because the state gives you a little sentence That's right. They give you, they're the ones that they set you up for the home run. You know what I'm saying?

So, all right. So what were all the, what were all the different charges you've been charged with? Most of them were like credit card fraud, like lying misstatements, like identity theft. Right, like lying on an application. Yes. False swearing, you know. Like if you get a driver's license and give them bad information, they call that false swearing. You know, false swearing to me is frigging. You know, use the word frigging, that's a false swear. He cracks himself up.

All right, so basically we're not going to tell your story today. We're just going to talk about because we're basically working on writing an outline of Zach's story. Correct. Which is a super cool story, by the way. So, but, you know, like both stories, it goes here and then you have to be able to kind of say, okay, well, that's interesting, but it doesn't further the overall story. So we're kind of what we're structuring, that we're writing up an outline, then I'm going to write a whole story.

But in the meantime, we end up having just a ton of, a ton of different, well, similar stories involved, you know, similar stories, and there's just all these separate stories. And then every time we end up having a conversation about something, it ends up being like an hour or two hours. And it goes, well, how did you do that? Well, I don't understand. What happened here? a year. So I thought that would make a cool, like, that would make a cool podcast, like just

two guys, two fraudsters, or, you know, I would say con man. Conman. Because, because nobody knows what a fraudster is, you know? Like my, my, my, what about scam artists? So like, so the names are con man. I don't want to say, hey, my name is Matt Cox. I'm a scammer. It does, it's con man's bad. Con man sounds classy. But what about a scam artist? Scam artist? You know what that sounds to He's skeezy. That sounds like a guy that does like the three, the, what is it? Three Card Monty. That's what it sounds like. That's a scam artist. Well, it gives you the artist's title, which means you're creative. So, see, a fraudster sounds like a super villain. You know, this is the fraudster. But con man. But con man sounds like to me, a con man is someone who can, it's a, to me, con men run like long cons. Like, but like scam artists do like short cons.

They do like three card Monty or they, you know, they pick your pocket. They do something. Con man sounds like like swindling someone. Right. You know, whereas like, okay, so a schemer, because I got a lot of different names. I got like schemer, you know, co-schemers, because they listed it like co-schemers, fraudster and a scammer, you know. So they gave me multiple names.

So when I look at that, I always wondered what each one... Did you get mastermind? I got mastermind several times in the newspaper. In the newspaper, mastermind. Actually, mine was yes, Massa, mine. No. It's going to turn into a whole black lives matter. No, not a black lives, but just thought I throw that joke in there.

Yes, Massa, mine. But, no, I didn't get... I got, like, the head of... of the scheme or the guy in charge ring leader ringleader that was the that was the term and that that's circus is circusy to me you know like because like a fraud ring right you know what is that like tons of people could be like three people but they make it sound like a fraud ring could be but you're saying circusy like like like you're the clown watch as he makes your watch it's appeared this has gone already gone bad um all right what yeah so no but what would you say i say con man

What do you say? I'd say scam, scam artists. It was mostly scams. But I've heard your, what's going on? Okay. Yeah, but your stuff to me that seems short, like a short con. Your scams, although they were quick. Like you didn't do anything that lasted.

You didn't run any, as far as I know from knowing your story, you didn't do any scams that lasted six months. It was always like you get the credit card, you go out, you run out the credit card, It's like within a few days it's over. Right. For a particular victim or a particular person or whatever we were doing, it was always something we were doing to get money. Right.

So it was a return of money. So it's an idea that returns money, which is, to me, is a scam. Con artist, to me, is always talking someone out of money. Right. Like, to me, the con is getting someone to legitimately hand you money. Whereas a scam is to kind of take their rules and use it against them. I agree, but I agree with you, but I always say con man because that's what people know. Like if you say scammer, you know, to me, scammers are people that do something on the computer.

You know, scam artists or a con artist or scam artist is somebody that's, you know, it's a short con, it's a very quick con. And a con man is somebody that does a long con. Like, and even though, even though all of those are interchangeable, whatever, we're getting off topic. All right. The point is, two things. One, try not to shake the desk. Oh, my fault. Because my mic's going to bang in it.

Secondly, so I thought we would talk about, we would just talk about different types of scams. Okay. So, like, I was going to, for instance, you were doing, one of the scams you were doing was the, the well let's not we'll talk about the wasn't me scam

but we'll talk about that in a minute okay you want to say that for last oh I love because I love that's my favorite

scam my favorite scam he called he wasn't me this wasn't me scam and I love that scam you know

you can love a scam I can love many scams so did you ever do the tax scam what do you mean by tax scam

what they call it the drop do you ever do that like you know where you get someone information and you file taxes on for them prior to because that's huge i i i i dealt with some

people who who did stuff like that but it that was never my forte i was i was kind of always able to assist in that but i was never like in the midst of that right so that kind of operated tant tangently you know whatever i had going on so that never stopped me from getting caught up and accused of it but it was a tangently occurring. You know, I'm witnessing as it's going on, and somehow I got accused of being the person putting it together. What about, you just can't stop jiggling this thing. I can't.

I don't get up off of it. So what about what were you were, so your credit card scams were what? It, they varied from getting card numbers and the simple of ordering items with card numbers, or buying stuff with card numbers. Right. One time, what we did was I would take, I had access to thousands of card numbers.

And for money, what I did was I would pay people's bills for with stolen card numbers and just get half of what the bill is. So you had a $200 electric bill, I'm like, look, I'll pay it with a fraudulent card number. And then you just give me $100, you know. Never thinking of the consequences that came behind that for the person, you know. know it's like so now you end up paying 300 but hey in the short terms your lights to be back

off you know what I'm saying let's do the here and now let's think about the here and now what was the other one the other one was a I know a good one was the rental car thing the rental car is because the the the the security guy like I but tell me well tell what happened what were you doing all right well so so under under I so that's why I so let me just say this first. That's why I use the term scam, why I have different labels. Because to me, a scam is using their rules against them. Right. Because all organizations, all financial transactions go by certain patterns. And they have things in place for security. Right. But usually there's a gaping hole in there that I kind of exploit to use against them. So what I was able to do is use

the rental car's convenience of returning customers or gold ring or preferred or the rental aisle for national using those convenience they gave the customers against them what I found is that if you rented a car and and I had access to someone that made fake IDs right I could actually book your rental car twice. So if you rented a car for like three days, I could take your reservation and reset it again and make it for three weeks, like two days after you rented a car. And then if I had a fake ID to kind of match your driver's license number,

I could pick that car up and rent it. You drive the car for three weeks. Drive the car for three weeks. And all I would do is just use your gold ring or your preferred service the convenience of just picking the car up. And what's so funny is I'd pick it up from the same location you picked it up from. Who was this through? All of them.

Hertz, Avis. I had a penchant for Hertz, and which turned into Hertz having a penchant for me. So real quick, so where were the credit cards? So how are you figuring out that this customer, has a gold, what did you call? Well, I was, I myself was a gold member. Okay. And what I realized is when I would go and I'd pick up my car,

when I would take the tag that was in the window, because what would happen is when I would drive out, the guy would look at my license, look at the tag, and then hand me the tag back, or hand me both of them back. So I said, well, what is he looking at? So when I look, he's looking at the last four digits of my driver's license number.

The credit card and all that stuff's on file is irrelevant. So because I have a credit card on file, if I rebook a reservation, it'll use the same credit card, right? And all I would need to get out with the car is an ID that had the last four digits of my number. So I told myself, I'm like, so if I duplicate, because I started out only really doing one state, I only could have California. So what we would do is we would go to the Hertz slot at like 9 p.m. and walk around the gold aisle ring and look, okay, hey, here's a renter from California. The last four is 3-8-7-9.

Right. You know, and so we'd write that down, get a ID with that person's name, and the last four is 7-8-49, and then now I can pick up a car the next day for two weeks. Okay. And what were you doing? How are you making money on that?

Rending them out to people who, a street pharmacist who couldn't get rental cars themselves and wanted to look fly. Drug dealers renting escalates. Yes. So they'd say, hey, I'll give you 700 bucks if you can, absolutely. So then I'd loan it out to them. So what happened was that was so easy and so exploited that when it all came crashing down,

the guy goes, you know, you had 60 vehicles of mine out from one location. Who's the guy? I know who hurts, yes. Right. So what happened? You got a phone call? Well, actually there was, so this was an addiction. This became to where I no longer went and got the cars. People who were giving it to dealers, like the phone is ringing. Business was booming. So I no longer went and got it. So I hired people to get it to go pick up the cars. So what happened is my hireies, you know, they had trouble in one spot. So I said, okay, let's go here. Okay, they had trouble there. And I said, okay.

let's go here. So we just expanded and keep picking up cars. So at one place, I guess they got hip and they arrested them. Right. So once they got arrested, you know, I, you know, they called me up and I asked them what's going on? And I said, what have you told them? They said, I haven't told them nothing. What as John Gordon would tell you, they misspoke, what they meant to say was there's nothing I haven't told them. It's a double negative. So I guess they told them who I was and gave of my number. So the person called me. The head of security. The head of security

for the National for Hertz called me. And I'm on the phone. He was very nice. Right. So he said, so he goes, listen. I'm going to make, he made me a, he didn't even know who I was. Right. So he knew you, he knew you were the ringleader. Yes. As you

would call it. So, so he told me, he said, all right. He was very cordial. So when he called, he called me something. He didn't have my name. I, you know, I went by Zach, but he called me black or tack. It was something similar.

So he's like, he goes, hey, I know what you're doing. I said, really, what am I doing? He said, you've got a person on the inside of my company that's turning, giving you information, and exploiting our customers. Right. He says. But you don't. That's not true.

I didn't at all. Right. So he said, I'm going to make you a deal. He said, if you give that person up, I guarantee you immunity that you will not be arrested or charged in this case. Can you even do that? So I'm saying, well, I mean, I thought about it. I'm thinking to myself, well, I'll call in tomorrow and say, can I speak with Betty? Betty, what's your last name?

Betty, I hope you don't have kids that need you. But anyway. So he asked me if I would give that person. person up, right? And I told him I absolutely would not. So you didn't say I don't have anybody? No, I didn't, like, I was amazed that he thought I had someone on the inside, you know, and I said, I'm not going to give him up.

Right. Then he said, well, you know, I'm going to find you and I'm going to prosecute you to the full extent of the law. He goes, you, you're going to make a mistake. And I told him, I said, no, because I've done. That same conversation. I said, I'm done doing that is what I told him. I'm done with that completely.

And I gave that up. I was done. I never touched Hertz after that. Yeah, but what happened? You forgot the part where you gave him a name or something? You said what your name was? And he went to the prison? Well, see, here's the funny part.

Well, it gets explicit because, like, I was using a name of a buddy of mine that I met in jail. Right? And I was actually legitimately renting a car, right? So I had another friend that needed to rent a car legitimately. I said, well, look, we're going to do it legit. So I said, what I'll do is I'll make you an ID under. That sounds legit. Well, that was my version of legit.

So I said, look, I'll make you an ID with the name I've been using to rent a car. And they'll just put it on my little $1,000 secure card. Right. So I gave him an ID under my name. He was white. I was black. So when he went to pick up a car, they harassed him. And then the next day, I went to pick up a car, and they harassed me.

So the guy that called said, well, there's a couple of people playing this guy. You got a white guy and a black guy. So he's like, what's going on? So what he did, though, because my friend was still in prison, he went to the prison and interrogated my friend. Actually, he interrogated him pretty bad. The head of security went to the prison and interrogated. The guy saying, we know this. Like, how did that guy get your information?

And he had no idea. He had no idea. Well, I mean, you know, he was a friend, you know. So, you know, what do friends do? Friends still friends' identity. A friend with a guy named Scott Cugnell who stole his identity. I mean, you know, I asked about $400,000 in his name. He had some questions.

I know. So we say scammers, you know, we still friends' identity. We love you. When they showed up at Scott's house, they showed him my picture. And he goes, that's Matt Cox. Really? Yeah, they go, they said, immediately, he said, they said, he just cashed like $400,000 in your name. And he said, he goes, I'll tell you right now, he'll be hard to catch.

And he was like, you're not helping me at all. That's Matt Cox. Yeah, they said, do you know this person? Yes, I do. But anyway, so, yeah, that's the part I always thought was funny. They actually went to the prison. the guy from Hertz was they must have been

listen a ton of money yeah listen listen 65 cars like an average Hertz car was 40 grand this is back in 2006 these guys aren't bringing the cars back

no they were keeping them they went out and listen the whole experience was nerve racking because I had so many people out with cars like they would tell me that the police the police would surround the car. They would low jack the car. The police

would surround the car and wait. So two police officers pulled up in these people's yard driveway and just parked by the car, waited. They're on the phone with me in the house, ducked down. Like the police are out there, man. I don't know what they're going to do. The police were waiting

for the record to come, load up the car and leave. Then the police left. And they're like, what happened? They go, the police left. So I started getting calls like that every day. Hey, man, the police are outside surrounding the car. Is this at the last three weeks? Like, they don't look for it for like three weeks, right?

Something, somehow they identified all the cars that were out at some point in property. Yeah, they started tracing what was going on. And I think what it was is all my rentals were three weeks and above. So they, like, let's start with all the three week rentals. Yeah, let's start with the three weeks. And they just start tracing the cars. Hey, did you rent this? No.

And then they're like, hey, go get our shit. So then they start going out and picking up their car. It was a troubling time. It was about a month and a half period wind down. Right. And that's why I rented, I gave my friend that ID. I said, look, we're not going to do it the old way. We're going to do it like this.

Just take this ID and rent a car as the guy I've been using. Really, which kind of threw him off because he's like, man, there's two people. There's a black and a white guy doing that. You know, what the hell's going on? So if you like the video, subscribe to the channel. hit the like button, share the video, and leave a comment for the algorithm, and turn the bell notification on so that you get notified the next time we have Zach on or any videos so that you can listen to them and see ya.