It sounds like the perfect side hustle: a well-known energy drink company wants to pay you $600 to $700 a week just to shrink-wrap your car with their ads and drive around like you normally would. The offer arrives by text, email, or a social media ad, sometimes because someone saw your resume on a job site. There is no interview, no real application — just easy money for doing what you already do. According to the Federal Trade Commission, this is a car wrap advertising scam, and it is a scam from start to finish.
The scam is really a fake check scam wearing a driving gig’s clothes. The “company” sends you a check for much more than the promised pay, tells you to deposit it, keep your share, and wire the rest to a supposed installer who will wrap your car. Weeks later, the check bounces. The money you wired is gone, the money you kept as “your share” disappears with the reversed deposit, and your bank expects you to repay every dollar of the fake check. No one ever wraps your car. Victims have lost thousands — one widely reported case involved a check for over $4,000, with the victim instructed to keep $1,000 and forward $3,000 to the “installer.”
Scammers love borrowing famous brand names — Monster Energy, Red Bull, Pepsi, and others have all been impersonated in these schemes. The brands themselves have publicly disavowed the offers; one energy drink company even won a court case shutting down a fake car-wrap website that mimicked its trademarks. The FTC has been warning consumers about this exact pattern since at least 2016, and reports keep coming in. Here is how the trap is built, and how to avoid stepping into it.
How the Car Wrap Scam Works: Step by Step
Every version of this scam follows the same script:
Step 1: The tempting offer. You see an ad on social media or a job board, or you receive a text or email out of the blue offering to pay you to wrap your car in ads for a famous brand. The pay sounds great — a few hundred to $700 a week — and the work sounds like nothing: just drive.
Step 2: The oversized check arrives. Once you respond, the “company” mails you a check — and it is for much more than the promised pay, often a couple thousand dollars. They explain the extra money is for the car-wrap installer you are supposed to pay.
Step 3: Deposit, keep, and forward. The instructions are always the same: deposit the check, keep your share, and send the rest to the “installer” — via wire transfer, money order, a payment app, or cryptocurrency. The scammer pushes for speed, because the whole trick depends on the money leaving your account before the bank discovers the check is fake.
Step 4: The check bounces. Banks are required to make deposited funds available within a few days, which is why the check appears to “clear.” But it can take weeks for a bank to determine a check is counterfeit. When it does, the bank reverses the deposit. Your “share” vanishes, the money you wired to the scammer is long gone, and you now owe the bank the full amount of the fake check.
Step 5: No car wrap, no recourse. Of course, no installer ever shows up. The scammer disappears with the wired money — which is nearly impossible to recover — and you are left holding the debt. Some victims have reported losing several thousand dollars in a single round.
Why the Fake Check Part Works So Well
The cruel genius of this scam is the gap between when a bank makes funds available and when a bank actually verifies a check. Federal rules require banks to release deposited funds quickly, so victims see the money in their account and reasonably conclude the check is real. By the time the forgery is discovered — often two or three weeks later — the victim has already wired real money to the scammer. As the FTC puts it: the check you deposited was fake, which means the money you sent is coming out of your own pocket.
The brand names are the other half of the trick. Seeing a logo you recognize lowers your guard. Real companies in this space do not operate this way: a legitimate advertiser would pay its own wrap vendor directly, not route thousands of dollars through a stranger’s checking account. That single observation — why would a real company ask me to pay their vendor? — unravels the entire pitch.
Red Flags of a Car Wrap Advertising Scam
Check any “get paid to drive” offer against this list:
- You are asked to deposit a check and forward money. This is the defining red flag. If any offer requires you to deposit a check and wire part of it elsewhere, it is a scam — every time, no matter what the story is.
- The check is for more than the promised pay. Overpayment followed by instructions to send back the difference is the classic fake-check pattern. Legitimate employers do not overpay you so you can pay their vendors.
- Payment must go through you to a third party. A real advertising company would pay its own installer directly. Routing the payment through your account exists only to make you the one holding the bag when the check bounces.
- You are told to pay by wire, gift card, payment app, or crypto. These payment methods are fast and hard to reverse — exactly why scammers demand them.
- The offer arrives unsolicited. Texts, emails, or social media messages offering easy money out of nowhere — sometimes referencing your resume on a job site — are a hallmark of this scam.
- No interview, no paperwork, no tax forms. The Better Business Bureau notes that legitimate work opportunities start with interviews and paperwork. If you are receiving payment before any of that, ask hard questions.
- Urgency and pressure. Scammers rush you to deposit and wire the money quickly, before the bank can flag the check. Pressure to act today is a tactic, not a business practice.
- The brand’s own website says nothing about it. Companies whose names are impersonated have publicly stated they do not run “car wrap” promotions outside their official channels. If the offer is not on the company’s real website, it is not real.
How to Verify Before You Engage: 7 Steps
- Apply the one-question test. Ask: “Why would a legitimate company route its vendor payments through my personal bank account?” There is no good answer. A real advertiser pays its own vendors directly.
- Contact the brand independently. Do not use the phone number, email, or link in the offer. Go to the company’s official website yourself, find their real contact information, and ask whether the car-wrap program exists. The impersonated brands have repeatedly said it does not.
- Search the offer text. Search distinctive phrases from the message plus words like “scam,” “fake check,” and “complaint.” Victims and regulators leave trails, and this scam’s wording is recycled constantly.
- Never deposit a stranger’s check and forward funds. This is the entire mechanism. Whatever the promised reason — car wraps, mystery shopping, overpaid invoices — depositing a check to send money onward is the scam.
- Verify checks independently. If you ever receive an unexpected check, call the issuing bank using a number you find yourself (not one printed on the check or supplied by the sender) and ask whether the check is legitimate — before depositing it.
- Slow down. Scammers manufacture urgency so you act before the check bounces. A legitimate opportunity will still be there tomorrow. Anyone who says otherwise is telling you something.
- Talk to your bank. If a check feels off, bring it to your bank and ask them to verify it before you deposit. Bank staff see counterfeit checks regularly and can often spot the signs.
What to Do If You Already Deposited the Check
Act immediately — every hour matters. First, contact your bank right now and explain you believe you deposited a counterfeit check as part of a scam. Ask what options exist to stop or reverse the outgoing wire or transfer; wires move fast, but it is always worth trying. Do not spend any of the deposited funds, and do not send anything further to the scammer — cut off all contact. Save everything: the original message, the envelope, the check (front and back), and records of every transfer you made. Then file reports (below). Be prepared: your bank will likely hold you responsible for repaying the fake check amount, and there is no guaranteed path to recovering money you wired to the scammer. An attorney or a nonprofit credit counselor can help you understand your options if the debt is large.
How to Report a Car Wrap Scam
- FTC: File a complaint at ReportFraud.ftc.gov — select “Scams and Rip-offs,” then “Counterfeit Checks.”
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center: File at ic3.gov. The impersonated brands themselves have directed victims to the FBI’s complaint portal.
- Your bank: Report the counterfeit check to your bank’s fraud department immediately.
- The impersonated brand: Notify the real company whose name was used; brands track these impersonation campaigns and have pursued legal action against the operators.
- Your state attorney general: State consumer protection offices accept fake-check complaints and track regional patterns.
The Bottom Line on Car Wrap Advertising Scams
Nobody is going to pay you hundreds of dollars a week to drive your own car with an ad on it — at least, not through a text message that asks you to cash a check and wire money to a stranger. The car wrap is fiction; the fake check is the whole business. Remember the rule the FTC states plainly: if you get a message urging you to deposit a check and wire money back, it is a scam, every time, no matter the story.
Sources
- U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Advice, “How to spot a car wrap scam” (August 2016) — https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2016/08/how-spot-car-wrap-scam?page=17
- Military Consumer (FTC), “How to spot a car wrap scam” — https://www.militaryconsumer.gov/scam-alerts/how-spot-car-wrap-scam
- Gizmodo, “If Someone Says They’ll Pay You to Wrap Your Car in Ads, It’s a Scam” (2024) — https://gizmodo.com/ftc-warning-car-wrapping-scams-fake-checks-1851386992
- GlobeNewswire, “Bang Energy Shuts Down Illegal Car Wrap Scammers, Protects Consumers From Fraud” (September 2022) — https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/09/06/2510515/0/en/Bang-Energy-Shuts-Down-Illegal-Car-Wrap-Scammers-Protects-Consumers-From-Fraud.html
- MontanaSports.com, “Can you make money wrapping your car with ads?” (2024) — https://www.montanasports.com/dont-waste-your-money/can-you-make-money-wrapping-your-car-with-ads
Last reviewed: October 2026
This article is for education only and is not financial or legal advice.