If you rent a car from Hertz and fail to pay your dues, the company remotely bricks the car, shutting it off and preventing unauthorized driving. That’s what happened to a woman in Ohio – who opted to remain nameless – in December.

Her complaint, according to Cleveland.com, read that she’d called a Hertz number she found on Google in an attempt to return the rented car. It was sitting in her driveway, dead, for seven days.

Who answered, though, wasn’t a Hertz employee. Instead, it was a scammer who was posing as a Hertz employee, using a fake number and a convincing (but also fake) Google listing to attract people in her position.

The scammer promised to clear her debt if she bought a $312 gift card and gave him the card number. Desperate to get the car off of her property, she went through with the strange instructions and gave the scammer the gift card number.

Oh, but the scammer wanted more

After taking the money, the “Hertz employee” said the gift card couldn’t be accepted as a payment because it wasn’t in the exact amount of $312 – it was $320. So, she bought a second one and tried again.

She paid the $632, hoping the car would be reactivated so she could return it, and waited for further instructions. The scammer promised to reimburse her $320 after the car’s return. Predictably, he never sent her the $320, and the car was never reactivated.

The fake number wasn’t responsive, either.

Realizing she’d been scammed, she tried calling the police, who told her to file a complaint with the FTC.