MONTGOMERY COUNTY — A man who owns a local car shop said someone is impersonating his business and trying to steal people’s money.
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He called News Center 7’s I-Team for help.
“When you emailed me back, I felt like the weight of the world was lifted off of me because I’m thinking maybe I can get some kind of justification,” Ashley Alexander, owner of Alexander’s Auto Sales & Repair, said.
Alexander has been in the car business his whole life.
“Been in this location for 12 years,” he said.
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He repairs and sells cars, but he doesn’t have muscle cars.
“No, I ain’t got any right now,” he said.
But in the last month, Alexander’s started getting a lot of calls from people all over the country.
They’ve wanted to pay him for muscle cars he’s supposedly selling.
“Like a ’76 Cadillac convertible and some ridiculous price like $12,000, and they called them, wanted to know if I had it, I said ‘I have no cars like that,’” he said.
He looked into it and found this Facebook page for “Alexander’s Auto Sales.”
However, it’s not his social media page.
Alexander said the fake page has his shop’s correct address but otherwise contains fraudulent contact information.
This includes a website that asks for personal information for “credit checks.”
News Center I-Team’s Lead Investigator, John Bedell, asked Alexander what he thinks people are doing with this information.
“Steal money from people,” he said.
Bedell went to the car lot and saw a sign with Alexander’s legitimate phone number, which is different from the phone number on the fake Facebook page.
The I-Team left a message for the fake number, and just a few minutes later, someone called back.
Bedell told the caller that he was looking for the ’67 Camaro at Alexander’s Auto Sales.
“Let me go outside,” the caller replied.
“My name is John Bedell. I’m a television reporter at Channel 7 in Dayton. And the owner says, you guys are posing as him. And I don’t see the car out here,” Bedell replied.
He said, “Let me go outside” again.
“OK, I’ll meet you outside. I’m right here. I’m here right now,” the caller said.
Then he said, “Wait a second” before hanging up.
“You seemed to be the right person. Part of the I-Team can take care of that,” Alexander said.
Alexander said he’s glad Bedell returned his call and listened.
“I’m elated that you showed up. So, for all those bad times that people see you and they take off running out the back door, I opened the front door. (And I said,) ‘Come on in,’” Alexander said.
He added that he’s had no luck getting Facebook to take down the fake page.
Bedell reached out to the social media application but hasn’t heard back.
The Ohio Attorney General’s office told Alexander to call his local law enforcement.
Bedell was with him right after a Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office called him, took his complaint and gave him a report number.
News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.
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