Earlier this year, a new car dealership named Effortless Motors opened in Riverside, California. In an effort to drum up interest in the new company, one of its employees posted a “fake” video on its social media page.
In the post, Effortless thanked Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James for trusting the company while showing a Bugatti being loaded into a truck as if “King James” bought a car from them. The problem was LeBron saw the post and called out the dealership for clout chasing.
“I’ve been an entrepreneur for a long time, man. Started a new dealership, and you know, I had an intern that thought it would be cool to try to get some hype and get our page going,” explained owner Ahman Abdelrahman.” It’s a Bugatti, a high-ranked car, so we’re trying to show him some praise, you know? And we’re a small page, I didn’t think in a million years anybody would ever see that little tag.”
“Superman” saved the day
The incident gave the company a bad rep even before it could take off. Fortunately, the news reached Shaquille O’Neal , and the Los Angeles Lakers legend contacted the owner directly. At first, Shaq offered to buy the car in the video, but when he spoke with Abdelrahman, “Diesel” saw a huge truck in his background and was mesmerized.