Dubai: Beware if someone taps your car window and tells you that your vehicle is leaking oil. The man could be a con artist.
The little black puddle underneath your vehicle may not have been caused by dripping hydraulic fluid but coconut hair oil.
A Sharjah motorist learned this the hard way when a conman tricked him into believing there was a defect in his car and then charged him Dh100 for repairs.
“I got scared. He said my brakes would fail and my family was in mortal danger if I tried to drive away. He said he was a car mechanic and offered to fix it for Dh100,” recalled an Indian man who was accosted by an Asian as he waited for a takeaway outside a confectionery in Sharjah’s Abu Shagara area last fortnight.
Nothing amiss
“He slid under my car with a screwdriver and emerged 10-15 minutes later saying he had plugged the leak. But it turned out that there was neither any leak nor repair when I double checked with an authorised service centre.”
An Indian woman who was similarly approached in the area as she returned to her car from a stationery shop last Sunday evening said she instantly sensed a trick. “It’s too much of a coincidence that a mechanic happens to be passing by at that precise moment, spots a leak in the dark and then offers to fix it.
“I was about to step into my car when this man showed up from nowhere and pointed to the oil spill. I bent down, swiped the fluid with my fingers and smelled it. It was coconut hair oil. I tried to confront the man but he grinned sheepishly and melted away in the crowd,” she said.
