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Turo is a haven for money laundering. In my area you can "find" multiple Chrysler 300Cs for rent for $600/day. I say "find" because many of them are unavailabl

Turo is a haven for money laundering. In my area you can "find" multiple Chrysler 300Cs for rent for $600/day. I say "find" because many of them are unavailable for days or even weeks on end as being rented. Good scam if you're, say, a dealer. Have one of your customers "rent" your car through Turo at an inflated rate. Bonus: you don't even have to let them have your car. They're just paying you and saying they rented it.

nickpinkston 5y ago
How would that be different that doing this on any eComm platform? I don't understand what's unique about doing it through Turo.
- jayrot 5y ago
  It's not all that unique, it's just that "daily car rentals" are pretty amorphous. Similar to how the car wash was the go-to money launder on Breaking Bad. If you have some other eComm platform telling T-shirts or whatever, sure there could be fake orders but it wouldn't be all that hard to track down that these THINGS were never sent/made. But anything involving a service...well, it's much harder to prove that those things DIDN'T happen.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > It's not all that unique, it's just that "daily car rentals" are pretty amorphous It’s also tough to verify an actual transaction happened. With most e-commerce, the equivalent would involve shipping around boxes of rocks to generate tracking numbers.
  - mattnewton 5y ago
    Car wash flow is slightly different right? Because it is a cash heavy business - in that case the "laundering" happens through cooking the books to make the business seem more successful (with more cash inflows) than it actually has. That cash comes from some illicit activity with different parties than the car wash and slowly supplements the main income from running the legitimate business. In the turo example, unless I am misunderstanding, the drug dealer or whoever is providing an illicit service asks for payment through a car rental? And so now your customers have knowledge and participation in the laundering scheme.
    - pnutjam 5y ago
      "Your customer" might just be you.
      - mattnewton 5y ago
        To do that I would need to get the money into the banking system though right? At which point it has to be already laundered. Otherwise auditors will notice unexplained large cash influxes. I don't think you can rent a turo car in cash.
  - nickpinkston 5y ago
    Yea, that's interesting re: audit trail of rental. They technically have the person take a picture of the odometer before/after, but I'm unsure they force. I'm a big Turo user (love renting sports cars off there for weekend corner carving), but I forget if it's required.
    - FireBeyond 5y ago
      Right, but if it's your car (the dealer) you're presumably still using it, so you can easily give the "renter" multiple odometer pictures.
dont__panic 5y ago
Makes you wonder how many tech companies are (unknowingly, hopefully) laundering money. You could pull off this kind of money laundering through a lot of services -- Etsy, Taskrabbit, tons of others -- by simply listing extremely overpriced items that nobody would ever buy legitimately. And I suppose if any poor sap ever wandered in and actually bought the thing you're selling, instead of just laundering money... you could always just provide that service anyway.
- wardedVibe 5y ago
  I mean, there's a lot of speculation that this is exactly what NFT art is most commonly used for.
  - voldacar 5y ago
    physical art too
    - 8ytecoder 5y ago
      I'd guess, it's easier with art than any of the other options listed. IF, they are caught and audited, it would be hard to justify paying $10,000 to install a TV mount. On the other hand, who can question (or prove in court) that a $100,000 painting isn't worth $100,000.
- Finnucane 5y ago
  If you look through the listings of used books for sale via ABE or Bookfinder, you can find a lot of listings at irrationally high prices. There's been grumbling that something like that is going on, but of course, mainly hearsay.
triter 5y ago
ellard 5y ago
Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee this morning, but I don't understand the scenario you're describing. Could you elaborate?
- SOTGO 5y ago
  Instead of paying for what the dealer is selling you rent his car for the same amount of money. You don't actually drive it (so it costs the dealer nothing in depreciation) but now the dealer has the appearance of a legitimate income stream.
  - ellard 5y ago
    Ah, gotcha. Thanks!
- Cederfjard 5y ago
  If you read ”dealer” as ”car dealer”, think instead ”drug dealer” or similar.
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    I'unno, being a car dealer is a pretty dodgy line of work. A huge barrier to wide adoption of BEVs is because dealers won't sell them because BEVs have far lower vehicle service requirements (no oil changes, no 20,000mi servicing, etc) which are normally half their revenue stream. Car dealers, en-masse, are happy to see the world burn than do-their-part and transition the world away from fossil-fuel cars simply due to their bottom-line.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee this morning, but I don't understand the scenario you're describing. Could you elaborate? Beth has dirty money. Bob, a friend of Beth’s, “rents” her car. (There is no car. Maybe Bob pays Beth over Turo and then Beth gives Bob the dirty cash.) Beth now has the appearance of legitimate income.
  - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
CPLX 5y ago
Doesn’t make sense. All the transactions are electronic and done with credit cards which means that money is already laundered for the most part. The idea of money laundering is to turn cash into legal income. There’s other kinds of money laundering too including cross-border type transactions like you might see with art or collectibles but it’s hard to see how this makes much sense via Turo. If the buyer has the ability to use a credit card to spend the money without attracting attention why not just buy something they want instead?
- tsunamifury 5y ago
  Sell illicit goods by renting a fake car on Turo. Easy peasey instant launder. All these others are thinking to hard. I see it on the airbnbs in the LA hills that are all fake with fake pictures etc. just there to rent to instantly launder a transaction from what I’m guessing.
  - CPLX 5y ago
    Or just have them Venmo you and say "splitting bar tab awesome night out!" Once it's a digital transaction it's a digital transaction I am not seeing the benefits here of getting Turo involved and lots of fees and costs when literally any platform will do this more easily. Like call it a car detailing service and get a square reader and only pay a couple percent. Having used Turo in the past my theory is that there's just a bunch of people mildly delusional about what their car is worth, or maybe that found renting their car is usually not worth the hassle but will take an exorbitant rate for when the super bowl is in town or some other time every rental car option is totally sold out.

nickpinkston 5y ago

How would that be different that doing this on any eComm platform? I don't understand what's unique about doing it through Turo.

jayrot 5y ago
It's not all that unique, it's just that "daily car rentals" are pretty amorphous. Similar to how the car wash was the go-to money launder on Breaking Bad. If you have some other eComm platform telling T-shirts or whatever, sure there could be fake orders but it wouldn't be all that hard to track down that these THINGS were never sent/made. But anything involving a service...well, it's much harder to prove that those things DIDN'T happen.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > It's not all that unique, it's just that "daily car rentals" are pretty amorphous It’s also tough to verify an actual transaction happened. With most e-commerce, the equivalent would involve shipping around boxes of rocks to generate tracking numbers.
- mattnewton 5y ago
  Car wash flow is slightly different right? Because it is a cash heavy business - in that case the "laundering" happens through cooking the books to make the business seem more successful (with more cash inflows) than it actually has. That cash comes from some illicit activity with different parties than the car wash and slowly supplements the main income from running the legitimate business. In the turo example, unless I am misunderstanding, the drug dealer or whoever is providing an illicit service asks for payment through a car rental? And so now your customers have knowledge and participation in the laundering scheme.
  - pnutjam 5y ago
    "Your customer" might just be you.
    - mattnewton 5y ago
      To do that I would need to get the money into the banking system though right? At which point it has to be already laundered. Otherwise auditors will notice unexplained large cash influxes. I don't think you can rent a turo car in cash.
- nickpinkston 5y ago
  Yea, that's interesting re: audit trail of rental. They technically have the person take a picture of the odometer before/after, but I'm unsure they force. I'm a big Turo user (love renting sports cars off there for weekend corner carving), but I forget if it's required.
  - FireBeyond 5y ago
    Right, but if it's your car (the dealer) you're presumably still using it, so you can easily give the "renter" multiple odometer pictures.

dont__panic 5y ago

Makes you wonder how many tech companies are (unknowingly, hopefully) laundering money. You could pull off this kind of money laundering through a lot of services -- Etsy, Taskrabbit, tons of others -- by simply listing extremely overpriced items that nobody would ever buy legitimately. And I suppose if any poor sap ever wandered in and actually bought the thing you're selling, instead of just laundering money... you could always just provide that service anyway.

wardedVibe 5y ago
I mean, there's a lot of speculation that this is exactly what NFT art is most commonly used for.
- voldacar 5y ago
  physical art too
  - 8ytecoder 5y ago
    I'd guess, it's easier with art than any of the other options listed. IF, they are caught and audited, it would be hard to justify paying $10,000 to install a TV mount. On the other hand, who can question (or prove in court) that a $100,000 painting isn't worth $100,000.
Finnucane 5y ago
If you look through the listings of used books for sale via ABE or Bookfinder, you can find a lot of listings at irrationally high prices. There's been grumbling that something like that is going on, but of course, mainly hearsay.

triter 5y ago

ellard 5y ago

Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee this morning, but I don't understand the scenario you're describing. Could you elaborate?

SOTGO 5y ago
Instead of paying for what the dealer is selling you rent his car for the same amount of money. You don't actually drive it (so it costs the dealer nothing in depreciation) but now the dealer has the appearance of a legitimate income stream.
- ellard 5y ago
  Ah, gotcha. Thanks!
Cederfjard 5y ago
If you read ”dealer” as ”car dealer”, think instead ”drug dealer” or similar.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  I'unno, being a car dealer is a pretty dodgy line of work. A huge barrier to wide adoption of BEVs is because dealers won't sell them because BEVs have far lower vehicle service requirements (no oil changes, no 20,000mi servicing, etc) which are normally half their revenue stream. Car dealers, en-masse, are happy to see the world burn than do-their-part and transition the world away from fossil-fuel cars simply due to their bottom-line.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee this morning, but I don't understand the scenario you're describing. Could you elaborate? Beth has dirty money. Bob, a friend of Beth’s, “rents” her car. (There is no car. Maybe Bob pays Beth over Turo and then Beth gives Bob the dirty cash.) Beth now has the appearance of legitimate income.
- 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

CPLX 5y ago

Doesn’t make sense. All the transactions are electronic and done with credit cards which means that money is already laundered for the most part. The idea of money laundering is to turn cash into legal income. There’s other kinds of money laundering too including cross-border type transactions like you might see with art or collectibles but it’s hard to see how this makes much sense via Turo. If the buyer has the ability to use a credit card to spend the money without attracting attention why not just buy something they want instead?

tsunamifury 5y ago
Sell illicit goods by renting a fake car on Turo. Easy peasey instant launder. All these others are thinking to hard. I see it on the airbnbs in the LA hills that are all fake with fake pictures etc. just there to rent to instantly launder a transaction from what I’m guessing.
- CPLX 5y ago
  Or just have them Venmo you and say "splitting bar tab awesome night out!" Once it's a digital transaction it's a digital transaction I am not seeing the benefits here of getting Turo involved and lots of fees and costs when literally any platform will do this more easily. Like call it a car detailing service and get a square reader and only pay a couple percent. Having used Turo in the past my theory is that there's just a bunch of people mildly delusional about what their car is worth, or maybe that found renting their car is usually not worth the hassle but will take an exorbitant rate for when the super bowl is in town or some other time every rental car option is totally sold out.