Criminals typically lay low after committing a crime. However, a man who allegedly used a fake check to buy a $50,000 Ford F-250 thought he’d try a different strategy to keep the coppers on their toes. Best Ford of Nashua, New Hampshire, the dealer that 36-year-old Ryan Duval is charged with scamming, posted on Facebook asking followers to be on the lookout for the pickup—and Duval replied in the comments. Multiple times. It’s proven not to be the best strategy as the police later caught Duval, who was already wanted for stealing from a Lowe’s.
Best Ford’s initial post called out Duval specifically, claiming to have contacted him about the fake check. However, he reportedly refused to return the truck. That’s when the dealership asked its followers to help find the vehicle but not to engage with Duval because “he is not a good guy.” The dealer even shared the receipts of his prior arrests to demonstrate his lack of good-guy status.
Duval allegedly skipped town with the stolen F-250 Lariat, but continued to comment on the dealership’s Facebook posts. One commenter wrote that they thought they saw Duval at AutoZone buying RealTree floor mats for the truck, but Duval responded by saying “Nope weather tech.” Duval or his lawyer may now be deleting some of those responses, though, as some threads that Facebook says he replied to no longer show any. Still, the fact that he was in the chat at all seems like a questionable tactic, at best.
After Duval’s arrest, the dealership made a video mocking him by having someone dressed in an old-school black-and-white prisoner’s outfit driving the stolen truck and then getting arrested for using a comically large check. While the video itself is painful to watch (I’m not sure why I thought car dealership sketch comedy would’ve been better), it’s still amusing that the dealer went to the trouble to lampoon the guy.
When Ford of Nashua initially asked for the public’s help, it offered a $1,000 reward for helping to track down Duval. However, after so much public support, the dealership decided to double the reward in a sense, by giving $1,000 to one of the many commenters who offered info as well as another $1,000 donation to the Nashua Police Department Athletic League.
Duval is charged with theft by deception, theft by unauthorized taking, and forgery, per the New Hampshire Union Leader. While Ford of Nashua’s Facebook commenters certainly pitched into the effort to find Duval, the dealership told Automotive News that “it was the police that ultimately found him and the vehicle.”
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