Kids phone in car-wash scam

From cell phone to cell phone, word rippled through town: Use this number for a free car wash.

Last update: March 30, 2007 - 8:17 AM

From cell phone to cell phone, word rippled through town: Use this number for a free car wash.

Over several weeks, cars carrying high school and college kids lined up six or seven deep outside Severson's Food Plus convenience store in Austin, Minn., waiting for a touch-free/cash-free wash.

With the stolen maintenance code programmed in their phones or memories, they ripped off at least 1,000 washes, police and store officials said Thursday.

The stolen suds caper dried up after three weeks, thanks to an astute Severson's employee, former middle school teacher Tom Scrabeck.

On March 19, the car wash malfunctioned, so he stood near it, putting in customer's codes manually. The cars trickled through, many driven by nervous young people with no sales slips. When Scrabeck asked one of them, a teenaged girl, for her code, he said, "She hemmed and hawed and then looked in her cell phone and gave me her number."

Now the hunt's on for the culprits, said Austin Police Chief Paul Philipp.

On Thursday, Scrabeck had some advice for the scofflaws: "Get a job. And pay for your washes."

JOY POWELL