MIAMI – A South Florida man who thought he bought insurance on a recently-purchased car got a rude awakening when he discovered he wasn’t actually insured — and was instead sold a phony policy, according to state authorities.
It turns out, investigators said, that the man who sold him the fake policy wasn’t an insurance agent at all and scammed multiple customers who purchased cars at the same Miami car dealership as the victim.
Recommended Videos
Authorities with the Florida Department of Financial Services’ Bureau of Insurance arrested the accused trickster, William Edwin Diehl Jr., on Tuesday.
The 39-year-old North Bay Village resident is the owner of Gordos Auto Inc., registered to an address in Coral Gables, according to state business records. But authorities said he swindled customers of a Little Havana used car dealership after passing out business cards there as part of a cold call sales visit.
According to an arrest report, Diehl turned up one day at Douglas Auto Sales Inc., located at 1900 W. Flagler St., proclaiming to sell auto insurance and encouraging sales staff to pass out his card to customers and multiple victims would end up purchasing the fraudulent policies from him.
They said he took hundreds of dollars each from multiple customers via payment app Zelle in exchange for what the victims thought was auto coverage.
Investigators said staff members at the dealership were alerted to the scheme after a customer totaled a newly-purchased vehicle and found out the insurance policy he bought through Diehl was fake.
The dealership ended up being on the hook for $26,000 in losses because it still had a lien on the car, the report states.
Another victim, authorities said, had his driver’s license suspended for failing to carry insurance.
Diehl refunded at least some of his victims for the fake policies, investigators allege.
Diehl, who was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center just after 4 p.m. Tuesday, is charged with felony counts of grand theft, organized scheme to defraud, unlawful use of a communications device and acting as an insurance agent without a license.
He remained held in TGK on an $11,000 bond as of Wednesday afternoon.