Newport Beach man fears he was scammed by fraudster posing as Justin Bieber’s staff

A Newport Beach car rental company allows people to borrow Moke electric vehicles that resemble golf carts: Because of their compact size and open-air design, they are popular at outdoor events like Coachella Festival to shuttle people around.

Chad Marta, the owner of Newport Beach Moke, said he wasn’t surprised when he got a last-minute rental request from a man who presented himself as a concierge with a headline artist at Coachella.

However, Marta now believes he may not see the four buggies he rented out to the person because of an elaborate scam, and he’s out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“It’s terrible someone would do this,” Marta said, adding the man, who introduced himself as Alen, said he wanted to rent four cars for 10 days to move Justin Bieber around at the Coachella site.

“If it moves fast like it did, there are always loose ends that are tied up later, but we make sure we perform and get the cars cleaned and looking great and charged,” Marta explained.

Later, someone who claimed to be Alen’s assistant later picked up the keys, and the four cars were delivered to an address in Palm Desert, not too far from the festival.

Hours later, Marta said he checked the trackers on the cars, and noticed something was off.

“I’m watching it and tracking it heading to the 10 West and 60 and then the 215 and 15,” he said.

Marta’s wife got on the phone with the customer, who was inebriated while loud music playing in the background. He said he was at the festival, and everything, including the cars, was find, according to Marta.

But the cars were later tracked south of the border in Tijuana before the locations were turned off. The customer was nowhere to be found.

NBC Los Angeles reached out to the company that rented the cars but did not get a response. NBCLA also reached out to Justin Bieber’s team.

“It’s a punch unfortunately, and it hurts,” Marta said.

The invoice was made with a $20,000 deposit, but because the rental was last minute, the wire transfer for the deposit never went through, according to the rental company owner.

As Marta scrambled to replenish the four cars worth over $200,000 to keep the business operating, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that it’s launched an investigation into the matter.