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Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price
61–70 of 136 posts
Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
But Bob will have to deposit this dirty cash at some point. With enough cash, it’ll raise alarm bells unless Beth has A LOT of friends who can deposit $600 each.
Who said anything about it being physical cash?
The whole point of money laundering is to get criminal money into the banking system. Once it’s in the banking system you’re done. That’s why strip clubs and other cash heavy businesses are used to mix it all in.
Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee this morning, but I don't understand the scenario you're describing. Could you elaborate?
If you read ”dealer” as ”car dealer”, think instead ”drug dealer” or similar.
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.
Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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, unle…
"Your customer" might just be you.
Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right. I was thinking about Airbnb, which has cleaning fees that can be pretty hefty on one-night rentals. And those are understandable because someone needs to come in and change the sheets/towels, wash dishes, etc. But there's no "bedsheets" analog for a car rental. Yes, it needs to be washed, but I imagine most renters of Priuses don't actually care if the car hasn't been washed in a few days/weeks.
I agree that that service should be considered in the price of the rental, but I disagree that it should be separate from the rest of the rental fee. It's required, and it's only separated out to make the rental look cheaper, right up until you get hit with that fee.
>it's only separated out to make the rental look cheaper, right up until you get hit with that fee
That's certainly one reason. But it can also make sense to have a one-time fee that's independent of the duration of the rental. Cleaning a room is the most obvious example. But there are other more or less fixed overheads that are largely independent of the length of time something is rented.
If you're renting out just about anything, would you prefer seven 1-day rentals or a one week rental?
Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Still not detailed enough and doesn't make any sense. Does Beth have cash? Is it in a bank account? You can't use cash on Turo from what I understand. If money is in bank account, it won't be "dirty". So, how can Beth pay for a rental on Turo? As someone already commented, there is nothing special about Turo, you could just set up an ecommerce store and ship rocks around. Can you please expand?
[deleted]
Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still not detailed enough and doesn't make any sense. Does Beth have cash? Is it in a bank account? You can't use cash on Turo from what I understand. If money is in bank account, it won't be "dirty". So, how can Beth pay for a rental on Turo? As someone already commented, there is nothing special about Turo, you could just set up an ecommerce store and ship rocks around. Can you please expand?
> there is nothing special about Turo, you could just set up an ecommerce store and ship rocks around Your analogy is correct. These serve similar functions. It’s just easier to pretend to rent a car than it is to ship rocks. (I disagree with OP about there being massive money laundering on Turo.)
I still have questions:
1) How is it "dirty" money when it is in the bank account? It is accounted for. Your tax ID / EIN is associated with the bank account and it is reported to IRS.
2) The ecommerce rock-shipping company would need to take cash and have to deposit in a checking account to be able to successfully launder money. So at this point, it cannot be an "ecommerce" company. It would need to be a hot-dog stand. Right?
Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
But Bob will have to deposit this dirty cash at some point. With enough cash, it’ll raise alarm bells unless Beth has A LOT of friends who can deposit $600 each.
Bob has a business with lots of cash coming in and can fold Beth's cash in without it being too obvious.
Or Bob knows people who know what to do with suitcases full of $500 Euro notes without alerting legal issues.
Presumably Beth pays Bob for this service.
Then Bob may have to pay his friends.
This can be done with varying degrees of sophistication.
Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price
#69Turo is a haven for scams of all kinds. Renters will offer airport pickup and drop off when you’re buying, but then bait and switch after you’re on the ground, crying about local police enforcement of ride share type airport drop offs. Since their major use case is people on vacation, they are perfectly fine with taking advantage of people in the name of “disruption”. Good riddance. If it seems too good to be true, it is.
Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? They sure successfully nailed airlines on the practice a decade ago. [1] It doesn't take a world-leading regulator to say "it is an unfair and deceptive business practice not to list the total price in a search result." I think a regulator may be able to handle this one. [1] https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...
For all the (somewhat legitimate) cracks about airline add-on fees for things like checked baggage (for non-status flyers), airlines are actually one of the better travel categories in terms of fully disclosing costs up front. Hotels and car rentals generally will before you press the confirm button but often don't up-front--and this makes comparison shopping difficult because the patterns aren't consistent.
Definitely, because they were super forced by the DOT under 49 U.S. Code § 41712. [1,2,3]
[edit to include text:]
The Department considers any advertising or solicitation by a direct air carrier [...] that states a price for such air transportation [...] to be an unfair and deceptive practice in violation of 49 U.S.C. 41712, unless the price stated is the entire price to be paid by the customer to the carrier...
[...] Although charges included within the single total price listed (e.g., government taxes) may be stated separately or through links or “pop ups” on websites that display the total price, such charges may not be false or misleading, may not be displayed prominently, may not be presented in the same or larger size as the total price, and must provide cost information on a per passenger basis that accurately reflects the cost of the item covered by the charge.