If you’ve ever driven around in a car with a dent, then you may’ve been accosted by someone in a parking lot who’s offered to fix it for you on the spot for a very low price. There are a number of folks who advise against taking up these unsolicited offers, calling folks who perform them “dent gypsies.” One of the biggest ways to point out whether or not someone’s attempting to scam you with this offer is that they ask for their money upfront.
But a TikToker named Nealie (@nealiboschma) said that despite her initial reservations upon being approached by a parking lot dent repair team, she ultimately decided to let them work on her vehicle while she was getting some shopping at Ulta done. She posted photos of the damage, along with footage of how her car looked upon the repair people working their magic on it.
@nealieboschma #greenscreen ♬ original sound – Nealie Boschma
Nealie says in the video, “What I’m about to tell you I have a feeling you’re gonna have a hard time believing it because I kind of have a hard time believing it. So I parked going into Ulta to get my mascara, right? Right. As I was parking someone approached me and they were like hey I noticed a little dent on you car and I was like oh yeah everybody notices it it’s a very big topic of conversation then he was like me and my friends can fix it like right here right in the parking lot for you. And before you say anything, I KNOW, immediately I was like no I’m good thank you so much I’m good.”
However, that wasn’t the end of their interaction, “Then in between me saying no and walking to Ulta I was like you know what? Maybe I should hear them out? They were like yeah we’ll just fix your car you go do what you gotta do lock your doors like everything will be good and come out in like 20-30 minutes and we’ll have your car fixed. In my head I was like that seems too good to be true I’ve been living with this dent for like six months now you know I don’t know about this. And then they started showing me their work and I was like OK wait they actually are legit maybe I should do it.”
Convinced upon seeing what she thought was evidence of their workmanship, Nealie decided to let them work on her car, “In my head I was like you know what I’m a pretty open-minded person I was like it can’t be any worse than I’ve already got going on there so I was like you know what? Have at it.”
At this point in the clip she reveals that she’s finished shopping at Ulta and she’s looking at the people working on her car. “Now I’m all done at Ulta and I’ve been kind of watching them across the parking lot work on my car.”
She then cuts to a green-screen photo of what her car looks like, “This is currently what my car looks like.” She shows off the front of what appears to be a white Tesla Model 3, where the bumper is separating from the upper-wheel well of the vehicle. She says that she’s using tape to currently hold it together so it doesn’t end up “flying around.”
Nealie went on to further explain her thought process in allowing the parking lot: “I’m like OK, you know what maybe they’re being nice and they really just want to help me out here. Call me naïve, but that’s how it works for me. And I’ve gotten quotes to fix that and it’s gonna be five grand. Five grand, I don’t know. So in my head I’m like cheating the system here a little bit. Like in my head I’m like this seems like a good idea.”
She did express her doubts, further chronicling her thoughts until the work on her car is completed. We’ll see though, we’ll see you know I have yet to tell my mommy because I have a feeling she would yell at me. Cause they’re giving me a very, very, very discounted price for this so I’m like, I’m like you know what my fingers are crossed.”
Nealie then decides to walk over to her car to check on the status of her vehicle: “I think I’m gonna waltz over there and just check up on their progress. It’s literally my car why am I so nervous to go over there? Why do I do this to myself? I literally just came to get mascara, like I was minding my own business and now I’m here. Now I’m doing this. Should I sneak up on them? Give them a jump scare? Be like boo!”
She then records her facial expression upon walking to the vehicle, she’s smiling. “Wow! Whoa!”
“Yep,” a man could be heard saying off camera.
“Literally looks like brand new!” She says.
“Yeah, that’s what we do.”
Nealie then walks away and continues to speak to the camera, “They’re almost done with it it looks incredible like night and day difference. The only thing they said it was like my rim that like plasticky black thing that goes on my car, they said that one’s like cracked and broken so they were like if you get a new one of those we can just put it on on there for free.”
“I was like dang OK, OK. You know how many people look at my dent when I’m driving like blatantly they’ll be like,” she then gesticulates her head turning in an extreme fashion. “Like that, just like that. I catch people in 4k all the time staring at that thing, like…”
She then finally shows off the work done on her car which she calls a “night and day difference” and parts of the vehicle appear to be covered in some type of adhesive she says she’s supposed to leave on for “24 hours,” which she then has to “buff out,” later.
“Honestly, wasn’t one of the worst ideas I’ve had,” she says, beaming at her repaired vehicle.
In a follow-up video she showed what her car looks like after she removed the adhesive material after the repair and while there is a clear line of separation still visible between the bumper and the body of the vehicle, many users thought it indeed looked better than it did previously: “I mean for a ulta parking lot patch job it really does look better than I thought it would lol,” someone penned.
Nealie mentions that because the bumper was moved back into a position that was closer with its original factory alignment, her car door, upon opening it, stops “catching” on a section of the body as a result, which caused further damage to her use. Since it no longer does that, she was happy with the results of the parking lot repair gig.
Several people, however, still cautioned her against getting work done on her vehicle from strangers in parking lots, and some thought that whoever repaired the bumper slipped a tracking device on it: “You were 100% air tagged,” one person wrote. Someone else penned, “Ok not to be sus but pls also check for like trackers,” to which Nealie replied that she already did.
Another person seemed to agree with Nealie’s line of thinking, writing: “The thing is, he probably does this as a side hustle. Yet my paranoid brain is thinking tracker just like everybody else in the comments damn.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Nealie via email for further comment.