WFTV Now
As people in our community continue to deal with the aftermath of flooding and other storm damage, there could be scammers looking to cash in on this devastation. Even people who didn’t have their homes damaged could be targeted.
Recovery from the storms like we saw in central Florida over the weekend is never easy. When the rain came down Sunday evening, streets flooded, and homes filled with water. It’s a disastrous situation even for those with flood insurance. Orlando insurance agent Tom Cotton with Hugh Cotton Insurance said, “You need to start by asking yourself the question, ‘What if?’”
A bizarre scam involving what could be a fake website is hurting customers and making a central Florida business look bad. At least two people lost more than $20,000 in this scam. It involves a slick-looking website that offers tractor equipment for sale from a company located in Brevard County. The problem is the owner of that company told Action 9 Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal the website isn’t his and he doesn’t even sell tractor equipment.
A local car dealership Action 9 has been reporting on for the past two years is shut down after the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles revoked its dealership license. The Benji Auto Sales locations in Orlando and south Florida are both now closed.
Victoria Sjostedt had serious injuries after getting struck by a car in August. “When the impact first happened, my leg kind of exploded,” Sjostedt told Action 9 Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal. But as she worked to recover, she found herself dealing with a billing nightmare for a wheelchair she claims she turned in months ago. She said, “I don’t know, it’s overwhelming.” When Sjostedt was released from the hospital, she was provided a wheelchair and billed around $50 a month to use it by a company called CareCentrix, but she said after returning it to Orlando Regional Medical Center in December, the bills kept coming.
A local veteran claims when something major went wrong with his water lines, the company left him high and dry.
Benji Auto Sales is a dealership Action 9 has warned consumers about before.
A truck that’s been in the Hempsted family nearly seven years was essentially taken from them, at least on paper. “So, it’s been a huge pain, but I don’t know how else to get around it,” Christine Hempsted told Action 9 Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal. It appears someone cloned the Orange County family’s vehicle and registered it in another state hundreds of miles away. Christine Hempsted said she couldn’t re-register the truck in Florida after someone else registered it in Massachusetts. Part of what makes it so bizarre is that that they’ve never had the truck out of their possession since they got it in 2018. Now, because someone registered it up north earlier this year, they were stuck with expired Florida tags.
Taylor Weekend 2025 was supposed to be a Taylor Swift-themed weekend of fun, but after organizers and customers spent thousands of dollars, it was suddenly called off.
A Volusia County couple has been trying to get rid of their timeshare since 2017. They got desperate and hired a timeshare cancellation company, but instead of getting help they got burned. “We wound up doing it. To this day I regret it,” Jeff Lamey told Action 9 Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal. Jeff Lamey and his wife Sandy spent nearly $11,000 with the timeshare exit company and are still stuck with the timeshare.
