Selling your Car - Scammers

kerryman87

I have had my car advertised on Carbuyersguide and Buy & Sell for the past week and since then have received 2 e-mails from what sound like scammers:

Message from: andres
Phone: 7031871231
Mobile: 7031871231
Email: andres_mokovich@yahoo.com
Offer amount: nil
Message content:
Hello
how are you today seller!! i came across your advert for the sale of your
car/auto..i am interested in buying it,so kindly tell me your last selling
price and present condition.i would love to see any recent pictures

WHAT IS YOUR LAST PRICE?
WHAT IS YOUR LAST PRICE?
WHAT IS YOUR LAST PRICE?
WHAT IS YOUR LAST PRICE?

I await your reply.

Get back to me in english


thank you

Regards

Andres

Message from: scott
Phone: +44702417162
Mobile:
Email: scottjoe1100@yahoo.com
Offer amount: none
Message content:
interested in your advert.
i want to know if it available for sale do let me know quickly???
Your last offer.
My phone number {+44702417162}

GET BACK TO ME.......
RIGHT FROM ;- SCOTT......

I guess this is common since I have already received 2 of these e-mails in the space of 3 days. Just wondering what to look out for with a scam. I remember receiving a similar e-mail when I was selling my last car over 2 years ago. A foreign seller e-mailed me saying she was interested in the car and looking for pictures. After I forwarded pictures, I got an e-mail back saying she was willing to pay the full asking price. She wanted me to send on my address so she could send on a bank draft and then she would have someone come collect my car. The deal sounded very dodgey seeing as she didn't even want to look at the car and wanted to paying the full asking price.

Has anyone here ever been conned like this? I heard that these guys send on bank drafts and you are able to cash them at your bank. But apparently the money that is lodged in your account is not fully cleared (it's just lodged provisionally) and may be withdrawn from your account up to 2 weeks later. Is this true?

I also missed a call from a number based in Cyprus. Looked this number up on Google and found that it was a company claiming to be "British Motor Company" or something similar. They tell the seller that they have a buyer lined up for your car and ask you to pay them €120 approx to sell your car for you.


Seems to be a lot of these scams around. Has anyone else had any experience with these guys?

Esel

Do a search. There a few threads on scammers, describing different scams - some of them ingenious.

Lex Luthor

kerryman87 wrote: »

Seems to be a lot of these scams around. Has anyone else had any experience with these guys?

experience of them? YES

ignored them all? YES

pcardin

be aware of all the buying offers from such countries like Romania, Turkey and of course NIGERIA!!! Never do business with them. I have a lot of experience with scammers. To scam somebody is like a job for them. They will allways offer full price and even more to make you sell your product to them. But when the thing goes to payment you will see a real tricks
Just to be safe don't even start deal with them. :cool:

Countryripple

Hi there,

Got the exact same email from the Andreas one, also one from an Emmanuel Kant who wants to buy it for his daughter as a wedding present. Ive just been taking the piss out of them.

peasant

Countryripple wrote: »

, also one from an Emmanuel Kant who wants to buy it for his daughter as a wedding present.

Emmanuel Kant, lol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

td2008

Got the same two emails as well and another one from a mike john :rolleyes:, all got the link from the buy&sell site.

m_stan

waste their time as much as you can. like I did

quarryman

ha, a good read ^^^.

reminds me of the stuff from 419eater.com

Sizzler

m_stan wrote: »

waste their time as much as you can. like I did

I was going to go on a rant about another thread being opened up about this topic...till I read your link

Botterbulletjie

Hi all,
I've recently been approached by one of these con artists. This one called himself Jeremy Barnard and went on and on about him wanting to buy my car for his daughter getting married in Egypt and himself opening up a clinic in Norway, being the reason he could not come to view the car himself.
Well, I did go as far as giving him my address, but have since smelt a rat and went online to check out if this was indeed a scam. It didn't take me long to come across this thread.

Jeremy is in the process of sending the cheque and I told him I was on to him. I probably won't hear from him again, but what about the fact that I gave him my address.

The car might sell soon enough, but I'm a little worried that the feckers will come and try to collect the car. Anyone know if there are chances of that happening, and if I should maybe park it elsewhere to be on the safe side until I have it sold?

m_stan

Botterbulletjie wrote: »

Hi all,

The car might sell soon enough, but I'm a little worried that the feckers will come and try to collect the car. Anyone know if there are chances of that happening, and if I should maybe park it elsewhere to be on the safe side until I have it sold?

Can't be sure, but I very much doubt it. These scams are generally all about getting your name, address, and bank details so they can either try to get money from your account, or sell your identity. My bet is your car is as safe as houses

Botterbulletjie

On the same note basically, I had a call from these Motorfind people trying to get 147 Euro off me saying they had someone in my town looking for the exact same car. As soon as I paid the money they will get this person out to me to view the car and if he finance the car with them, I get like 135 Euro back. I just told her to call me back later so I can discuss this with my wife, to buy some time. But, I knew from the start this sounds like another type of scam.
Anyway, she called back and I said that I would do business with them on one condition. She can send the person to view the car first, and if he decides to take the car, I'll pay her the 12 Euro instead.
Needless to say, she wasn't impressed and so our deal quickly ended:D

Botterbulletjie

Thanks Mark, I agree with you there. They ultimately try to get your credit card details to rip you off. Thank God for threads like these to help the unsuspecting and the uninformed.

Esel

m_stan wrote: »

Can't be sure, but I very much doubt it. These scams are generally all about getting your name, address, and bank details so they can either try to get money from your account, or sell your identity. My bet is your car is as safe as houses

The scams are not about gaining access to your bank account or stealing your identity. They are about parting you from your cash, via the 'refund the excess' method or the 'finder's fee' scam.

Botterbulletjie

Thanks Esel,
You're quite right. Will keep my eyes open in the future. They say that you get wiser as you get older. I will be very careful of the same next time and like Mark, I'll see how much of their time I can waste without wasting too much of my own:)

EternalSunshine

I was trying to figure out how the scammers were going to get their hands on some money and from that 419 link, it now makes sense...

And moreover, the amount that will be on the cheque will be the money for your the Car and shipping/freight plus the ticket costs to and from your place down here ... Once you get the cheque lodged into your account and it clears.. you will now deduct your last asking price and the remaining balance will be sent to the shipping agent through WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER...

cheeky buggers huh!

Anyone got any links for someone who actually fell for this particualar scam.. i have read stories about people getting scammed by the 'nigerian generals' but not thru car selling.

chickenhawk

m_stan wrote: »

waste their time as much as you can. like I did

ballymuckbackwards lmao

*Dallas

Put my car on carzone last night and at 3 o clock today i got a call from a scammer. ....

Some guy from a place called Motor Find rang me. He says they put private buyers in touch with private sellers. He said it only costs €160 and when the car sells, they refund €108..... I said "hang on, you charge me or you charge the Buyer". He said "we charge you". I havent laughed so hard that he hung up.

S-C-A-M!!

Why is it this only happens with Carzone? I havent had this trouble with CBG!

Type 17

I had a car up on B&S for a few weeks and got about 6-8 of these emails - For fun, I googled the mobile numbers in them, and found threads on forums all over the UK, and in Germany and The Netherlands - funny to see the whole thing played out in another language - the initial post with the quoted email and a question below it, followed by a load of short replies with lots of exclamation marks after them ("It's a scam!!!").

Stay safe, and remember that, on the internet, just like in real life, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is..." - If you are ever wavering, wondering if the offer/email/scam/bait could be true, then say the above phrase out loud and then read it again, and you'll see it for what it is.

Sizzler

Type 17 wrote: »

I had a car up on B&S for a few weeks and got about 6-8 of these emails - For fun, I googled the mobile numbers in them, and found threads on forums all over the UK, and in Germany and The Netherlands - funny to see the whole thing played out in another language - the initial post with the quoted email and a question below it, followed by a load of short replies with lots of exclamation marks after them ("It's a scam!!!").

Has anybody out there got an auto dialler a la Homer J Simpson "Happydude" episode, now that would be class

AnnaC

Hi,
I have a car for sale on buy and sell and have got 3 of these e-mails in the last few days. It is very annoying when we are honestly trying to sell a car and these people are trying to scam us. I report these to the administrators every time i receive one. Maybe try that?!

Type 17

AnnaC wrote: »

Hi,
I have a car for sale on buy and sell and have got 3 of these e-mails in the last few days. It is very annoying when we are honestly trying to sell a car and these people are trying to scam us. I report these to the administrators every time i receive one. Maybe try that?!

Hardly worth it - these are automated entries using the Contact Seller link in the ad - think of them as junk mail... there's very little that the website owners can do (blocking IPs just means that they use a different one and do it again)

m_stan

Just had the motorfind people on the phone to me. I only put my car up for sale on Sunday, and they are on to me already. Wonder what the legality of this service is and whether there is genuinely any potential buyer there ?

Poor chap. He hadn't even gotten through telling me what MotorFind are when I said "yeah that's a scam, no thanks"

not yet

A friend of mines son recently got one of these e-mails for a car he had for sale.

They sent him over a draft for 6k euro from england....4.5k for the car and 1.5 k for shipping, now the strangest thing is the draft/cheuqe cleared and this lad took the 4.5 k out and anything else he had in the account but left the ''shipping'' fee.............

Please explain to me like i was a 5 year old how this scam works.

Type 17

m_stan wrote: »

...and whether there is genuinely any potential buyer there ?

There is no buyer in those scams - they don't even look for buyers - they are solely set up to part people from their money using the finders fee scams.

The only buyers come from the ad itself - the car that I mentioned above is sold now, and we had four different people call up, all of whom saw it for themselves, and were not alerted to it through any agency.

Buyers always call you for themselves - and if you're not getting any calls, it's because it's priced too high, or it's a model that no one wants. Either way, there are no genuine agencies that can help you sell it - Ask yourself when you EVER saw, or had contact with, an agency trying to alert you to cars for sale in your area?

Stephen

not_yet: The draft will initially appear to clear but a couple of weeks later it will bounce and the bank will then take the money back, leaving you out of pocket and the scammer with your money.

Gary ITR

not yet wrote: »

A friend of mines son recently got one of these e-mails for a car he had for sale.

They sent him over a draft for 6k euro from england....4.5k for the car and 1.5 k for shipping, now the strangest thing is the draft/cheuqe cleared and this lad took the 4.5 k out and anything else he had in the account but left the ''shipping'' fee.............

Please explain to me like i was a 5 year old how this scam works.

Cheques/drafts will usually initially let you draw against them but you do so at your own risk. The cheque could bounce after ten days and your account is then overdrawn by the amount

not yet

Stephen wrote: »

not_yet: The draft will initially appear to clear but a couple of weeks later it will bounce and the bank will then take the money back, leaving you out of pocket and the scammer with your money.

Cheers...........As far as I know the lad gave an account he has nothing in or does not use, as far as he is concerned he couldn't care less what happens now.

Beano

not yet wrote: »

Cheers...........As far as I know the lad gave an account he has nothing in or does not use, as far as he is concerned he couldn't care less what happens now.

Except he will care when the draft gets returned to his bank as a fake and his bank ask him for the €4500

Type 17

Beano wrote: »

Except he will care when the draft gets returned to his bank as a fake and his bank ask him for the €4500

True enough, he should hold off on spending the €4500 he took out until he's sure that it has all cleared properly (which it won't, because this is a scam )