Update! Rat Scam Couple Sentenced!
Friday February 26, 2010
Back in May of last year, you may remember my mention of the couple who were arrested for using dead rats to scam customers and their insurance companies at their auto repair shop. Well, they've now been sentenced, and I was surprised to read that they were hit pretty hard by the courts! The husband received a well-deserved four years in prison for bilking customers out of an estimated $1.2 million. The wife received six months for her involvement. On top of it all, they will be forced to pay more than $875,000 to the insurance companies they scammed. Read about it in the San Francisco Chronicle.
You have to watch out for auto repair scams nowadays. And if its not the repair shop, then its the dealer
Yes, people really need to be careful when selecting someone to repair their car. We see people who have been scammed all the time.
In addition to being punished for their crime against their automotive customers, the A.S.P.C.A. and the Humane Society should get after perpetrators Mehran Baranriz and his wife, Bita Imani and file suit against them for cruelty to animals because these so-called people purchased rats and then killed them. Regardless of what you think about rats, that’s cruel.
I agree about the rats. This is also a big insult to all the honest auto repair shops that work very hard and diligently to gain the support and respect of clients. They should be banned from doing business in the auto repair industry.