Ventura County Sheriff's Department

Location: Recreational Parks and Beach Areas
Date & Time: Monday, June 22, 2009 @ 0900 hours
Unit Responsible: Moorpark Community Services/Crime Prevention Unit

Vacationers beware. There are groups of people that are cruising the beach campground areas looking for campers to become their next victims. The scammers are seeking out trailer and recreational type vehicles that are fiberglass and have a gelcoat application on them. The scam is to offer a new gelcoat application for a fraction of the cost, only to apply a watered down pigmented machinery grease.
Gelcoat is a material used to provide a high quality finish on the visible surface of a fibre-reinforced composite material. It makes the outside of your trailer or boat shine.
The way the scam works is the “Bad Guys” find a trailer where the gelcoat has aged and faded leaving a dull finish. They approach the unsuspecting trailer owner and give them a story that they work for a business that re-applies gelcoat to older or damaged recreational vehicles (RV’s). The scammer will tell you that they noticed your camper has sun damage and they have extra gelcoat product left over from a past job that they can apply to your RV to make it look like new again. The most enticing claim they make is they can do the application right at your campsite. They will even claim that it will revitalize the RV decals and seal them. You may be told that the new coating will last for up to 12 years and it will protect your RV from future sun damage.
The offer will be that all this can be done for half the price of a regular application due to the product being free. The costs will vary according to the size of the job but normally run anywhere from $50.00 for a front grill area on a motor home to $1000.00 for the whole motor home.
The scammers story is they are trying to make ends meet in the rough economy and are looking for side jobs on their weekends
Once convinced to allow the application, the scam artists begin to apply the gel substance. They will pull out several containers of pink, red, blue, or purple gel-like substances and begin wiping it on your trailer, boat, or motor home. It all looks like it is on the up and up at this point and the RV actually has a nice looking increased reflective sheen.
The distraction they use is to tell you during the application process not to touch the applied surface for up to 15 hours due to the high resin content which could burn or make your fingers stick together like super glue. They are also using a very adventurous and wondering young child they bring along to distract the owners into helping to watch the child and not the application process.
The actual scam: the material they are applying to your vehicle is not gelcoat. It is actually machinery grease. The colors are the color of the grease they are applying and when mixed with water the grease color varies to accommodate the colors mentioned earlier. The reason why they do not want you to touch the application is you can tell quickly that it is not resinous but greasy and if you smell the product you will smell the obvious odor of automotive/machinery grease.
The outcome of the scam is, you have just paid up to$1000.00 dollars for someone to wipe grease all over your RV and it will take you hours of hard work to strip the grease back off the RV so a real gelcoat application can be applied. Leaving grease on your RV will cause a great amount of dirt collection to the surface and will become a milky spotted surface when it gets wet.
This scam has recently been reported along the Rincon Beach area north of Ventura City. Do not ever accept services or sales of products from anyone that does not have a valid vendors license that you can verify. If you have been a victim or you are approached by these scam artists please call your local police immediately.