Woman Tells Terrifying Story of "Soapy Windshield" Scam Designed to Get Women to Pull Over

While it's never hurt anyone to be careful when going out, we've been taking precautions extra seriously over the past few years. Ever since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, folks have taken to carrying masks with them or even still wearing them in public to this day just in case. Mask use even found a second wind with ongoing issues concerning air quality in the United States. Of course, we haven't even gotten to having to be careful around other people.

Having to be cautious around other people in public can be especially tricky. You don't want to be suspicious around everyone, but apparently, people have been getting creative with methods to try and seriously mess up your day.

One woman shares her harrowing experience on TikTok in which a soapy windshield nearly made a victim in an odd string of crimes. Here's what you should know about this recent scam and what to look out for.

In mid-July 2023, Dani (@danitrapani) posted about her harrowing experience of nearly falling victim to a particularly sneaky scam. Reportedly, this took place in San Francisco, but Dani actively avoided revealing which neighborhood she lived in.

According to her story, Dani's car was parked under a bottle brush tree, something that she usually does while going to work. The bottle brushes from said tree fall on her tree all the time, forcing her to use her windshield to wipe them off every now and then.

Apparently, this made her the perfect target for a windshield scam. On one unfortunate day when she used her car's windshield wipers to brush off the bottle brush leaves as usual, her entire front window was blocked by a thick soap-like substance.

"I [couldn't] see out," Dani recalled. No matter how much she tried to wipe off the soap, it just kept getting worse.

She eventually made the decision to call her car maintenance–savvy husband via FaceTime to ask him what was going on with her windshield.

The husband immediately went into response mode, recognizing the severity of the situation. He told her to get to a gas station, insisting that she didn't step out of the car. Dani carefully drove to a gas station. When she got there, she noticed another car pull in — and the person in the passenger seat of that car was wearing a ski mask.

Keeping on her toes, Dani went into a convenience store with lots of people inside, keeping her husband on FaceTime all the while. Upon realizing that she had her camera on, the person in the ski mask returned to their car with their partner driving off.

According to several commenters, this is an ongoing scam that people have been using. The MO is reported as follows: perps use some kind of liquid substance to make people's windshields murky and difficult to see through to make the driver step out of their car and in plain sight. Many posit that this is related to kidnapping and sex trafficking.

In a follow-up, Dani admitted that she didn't actually know what the other person's intentions were. However, she still urges folks to be cautious if this happens to them.

"I don't know what they were trying to do; steal my car, a lot of people talked about trafficking, I have no idea. All I can say is that it was extremely scary," she said.

She concludes her follow-up by saying, "I hope that it reached the people it needed to."