Allowing strangers to rent your car through an app like Turo may sound like a good way to make passive income—until someone tries to sell it.
A TikToker, Adrienne Lee (@ohmyadrienne) claims her car was stolen and sold on OfferUp for $27,000. Her first video on the matter garnered viral attention on the platform, with 3.6 million views.
“POV You pull up at midnight to steal back your car that someone stole and sold on OFFERUP for 27K,” the text overlay on that video reads.
A message included in the clip notes the TikToker used Turo, an Airbnb-like platform but for cars, to rent out her car.
She alleged in the message that both the person who rented her car, which is a 2018 Mercedes-Benz, and Turo’s customer service were ghosting her. “The person I rented the car for isn’t responding and turo support keeps hanging up on me when I report it,” she wrote in the message.
@ohmyadrienne They had put their own seat cover and floor mats 😭😭 #viral #fyp #turo ♬ Oh No – Kreepa
In a storytime video, Lee says she went “back and forth” with a Turo customer who was trying to book her vehicle but that his account had been flagged by the platform. “Red flag no. 1,” she says.
She says there was an issue with the money being in his account but that she didn’t want to decline the request because it was an eight-day long trip, which she refers to as “substantial.”
In the end, she says, “everything gets worked out” and the customer picked up the car.
“The night before [his] trip is about to end, we get this message,” she says.
She says the customer told her in the message he rented the car out on behalf of someone else, who was not responding to him and that Turo support hung up on him.
@ohmyadrienne Reply to @ericorantes0 We should have known from the first red flag something was wrong! 🚩 #fyp #turo #viral ♬ original sound – Adrienne Lee
“We were under the impression that the car was for [the customer] and [the customer] only, so immediately we checked the trackers, we are out of the door,” she says. “We drive 30 minutes, we don’t know where we’re pulling up to, whose house this is, we just know we’re getting our car back.”
@ohmyadrienne We were ready for whatever! @khiree_esq #fyp #viral #turo #getitbackwithbabak ♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey
When they retrieved the vehicle, Adrienne says the car was full of personal items, like someone was planning on keeping it, with new seat covers and floor mats. They also found an invoice for a smog test, indicating that someone was trying to get the car registered, Adrienne says. Later, she says they received a call from a police officer who was following up on a stolen car report that they did not file.
“We really didn’t know the full scope of what had happened,” she says.
@ohmyadrienne Do you think David was on it?! #fyp #viral #turo #MINDORDERING ♬ original sound – Adrienne Lee
The person whose name was on the smog test, she alleges, sold the car on OfferUp for $27,000, and the person who purchased it was the one who filed the report after the car went missing. She says the police told her the person who sold the car is a known scammer.
Viewers are mind-blown that someone is willing to buy a car under such shady circumstances.
“I don’t know how someone could think a supposedly used Mercedes could be that cheap. That would have been my first red flag,” one said.
Others took aim at Turo. “Every time I hear about Turo it’s someone getting their car stolen,” another viewer claimed.
And others joked about the seat cover and floor mats that were added to the car. “lmfao the civic floor mats!!!” one of the top comments on the first video reads.
Update 10:35am CT, June 9: A spokesperson for Turo told the Daily Dot in a statement the guest in question was “promptly banned.”
“In reference to this situation, we learned that a Turo host was experiencing a late return of their vehicle in the Los Angeles area. The vehicle is back in the host’s possession,” they said. “Our team is investigating additional information, working closely with the host, and cooperating with the Los Angeles Police Department to resolve this issue.”
“Although these incidents are uncommon in our marketplace, we do offer vehicle owners protection plans that cover vehicle damage, theft, and loss,” they continued.
The Daily Dot reached out to Adrienne via Instagram direct message and to OfferUp via email.
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