WARNING - Selling your car scam !!!

Rough_Driver

Another variation on the theme is that they are organised criminals and looking to launder dirty money - usually from the drugs trade in West Africa. The 2K that is send to them is clean and will then be reinvested into gold, real estate, stocks , etc

beckett110

Thank you all so much for this thread as I have just received what I believe to be a scam email which reads as follows:

Customer Details:
NAME: MR andrew !simon
TELEPHONE:
EMAIL: andrewsimon212@gmail.com

HELLO SELLER,
I SAW THE ADVERT OF YOUR CAR ON AUTOTRADER.CO.UK WHICH IS FOR SALE.I AM OKAY WITH THE CONDITIONS OF THE CAR AND I AM READY TO BUY FROM YOU. I AM BASED IN DUBLIN IRELAND ,BUT AT THE MOMENT AM ENGAGED IN A LOT OF THINGS TO COME FOR THE VIEWING OF THE CAR. AM OKAY WITH YOUR PRICE AND PICTURE OF THE CAR AND AM READY TO GIVE YOU EXTRA'S OF ?100 FOR SECURING OF THE CAR SO IT WOULD NOT BE SOLD TO ANOTHER BUYER ,AND FOR YOU TO KNOW HOW COMMITTED I AM IN BUYING FROM YOU.

I WILL LIKE YOU TO KNOW THAT I CAN'T COME FOR THE VIEWING OF THE CAR AS EARLIER STATED CAUSE I'M VERY BUSY AT WORK RIGHT NOW, BUT WITH WHAT I SAW ON THE ADVERT I AM SATISFIED.I WILL LIKE YOU TO SEND ME SOME PICTURES OF THE PRESENT LOOK OF THE CAR.I LOVE THIS PARTICULAR MODEL.I WILL BE VERY HAPPY IF THE
CAR IS MINE.

I WILL ALSO WANT YOU TO KNOW I WILL BE PAYING YOU WITH A BANKER'S DRAFT, THE AMOUNT ON THIS DRAFT WILL BE MORE THAN THE PRICE OF YOUR CAR[OVERPAYMENT].

THE EXCESS FUNDS ON THE DRAFT WILL BE FOR MY AGENT FOR PICKUP OF THE CAR AND SOME OF MY OTHER ITEMS I ALREADY BROUGHT INSIDE AND OUTSIDE UK .

ONCE YOU HAVE FUNDS CLEARED IN TO YOUR ACCOUNT YOU WILL DEDUCT YOUR TOTAL MONEY PLUS THE EXTRA\'S FROM THE FUNDS AND WIRE THE EXCESS TO MY AGENT FOR PICKUP, SO THAT THEY CAN PROCEED WITH THE NECESSARY PAPERWORK AND ARRANGE WITH YOU A CONVENIENT DATE AND TIME FOR PICKUP.

IF THIS IS OKAY BY YOU,YOU WILL HAVE TO GET BACK TO ME WITH SOME NECESSARY INFORMATION WHICH WILL BE NEEDED FOR THIS TRANSACTION TO PROCEED.

1
THE INFORMATION IS AS FOLLOW;
YOUR FULL NAME....
YOUR FULL ADDRESS WITH POSTCODE......
YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBERS BOTH OFFICE AND MOBILE/HOME NUMBERS...

N:B
THE NAME YOU GIVE WILL BE THE NAME YOU WILL SEE ON THE CHEQUE AND IT WILL BE SENT TO THE ADDRESS YOU MAIL TO ME.YOUR PHONE NUMBER IS FOR TIME TO TIME CONTACT.
ALSO IF ANY BUYER CONTACT YOU ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR CAR,PLEASE TELL THEM IT'S ALREADY BEEN SOLD CAUSE AM READY TO MAKE PAYMENT AS SOON AS I GET THOSE DETAILS NEEDED FROM YOU.

I AM !TO A HAPPY TRANSACTION.

HOPING TO READ FROM YOU SOON.

REGARDS.
ANDREW SIMON.


I have replied to advise him to wire the money to his "agent" and have him contact me to arrange cash on collection. It was a nice try but for somebody with such a British sounding name the written English was poor and why else would somebody agree to pay over the asking price for a car. I'm glad I was suspicious and chose to google this before getting carried away into believing this.

Anyway just to let people know there are still scammers trying this trick so please don't be fooled.

CKhalvashi

[quote=[Deleted User];22677401]VERY similar to an email I had. They must spend hours scouring autotrader for new adverts.

In my case, I was selling a crappy old metro for £300 and this email was telling me his client was urgently looking for one of these and wanted to ship it to spain. Umm, dont think so !!!!![/QUOTE]

I did that with my Larry and Lexy (the Ladas) :eek:

Both RHD, both immaculate and both imported from Ukraine about 5 years ago. We've chopped the roof off of both of them and we have the only two convertible Ladas in the world

One's black and the other's white....paid about £400 each for them, so its perfectly possible :eek:

We only use them for car shows now .....1st prize about 25 times in the last 2 years...they're immaculate :cool:

CK

CKhalvashi

Riablo wrote: »

I have just received a scamming email.

I've had loads over the years, but this one nearly caught me out for several reasons:

1. I live in France and have advertised the car on an English speaking website (my French is not good enough to deal with French scammers!!), so I expected the replies to be in broken English as it is many people's second language, therefore poorly written email is not a big concern.

2. Email was individual and not generic.

3. This is the first scam where the scammer has provided me with a phone number to call him on. The number was +44070... so I assumed it was a UK mobile. I called him on it and spoke to him, nothing unusual, just a poor signal. I have later found out that 070 numbers can be used anywhere in the world and are very common with scammers and to top it off can cost you a small fortune (around £1 per minute) to call. I assumed scammers would not want to talk to people in person, but I was wrong, this is a common trick apparently.

4. Scammer had a yahoo email address. Apparently this is normal for scammers as it gives them a way to hide their identity. For me this didn't register alarm bells as I was also using a yahoo address.

I haven't got as far as the scammer telling me how much or how he will pay for the car. I wanted to check out what the scams were before giving him anymore information. He has just asked for my name and address so I assume he will send me a forged cheque.

The weirdest thing I found was this comment: "how are you doing today? actually the reception here was bad but i must say you have a lovely and sonorous voice. well i will like you to tell me about yourself and maybe family and how old are you? if you don"t mind."

That freaked me out completely and was the main reason I wouldn't send my address!! It was later that I realised that it all fell into the mould of a scam...if they hadn't have creeped me out then I may well have fallen for it. I'm not sure what the point of making out that the person buying your car is a pervet is meant to intice you in, but the fact he said these things made me think it wasn't a scam...seems a funny thing for a scam artist to say?? urgh

As for people saying that you would have to be really stupid to fall for these scams I actually think that some of these can sound credible.

I have always sold things on the basis of cash on collection or payment by cheque but goods will not be released until the cheque has cleared. I think that most people would think they were taking adequate precautions by making sure that the cheque cleared before letting the buyer take the car.

This is quite concerning and shows by its best to keep your guard up at all times.

I prefer phone contact as it provides me with a voice, however some prefer otherwise.

Just a thing on point 4. My email is "ck@ckscompanyname.eu or .ge" (depending on which country I'm emailing.) I'll only deal with business transactions through either a registered ISP (@btinternet.com, off the top of my head as I have one) or a company name (@hsbc.com to pick my business managers one, as I'm emailing her now). These are easily traceable if anything does go wrong.

If not, I try to track the IP address to a specified location.

Also, the email about having a lovely voice was one that my sister had before moving to Belgium (she works for the European Commission) when someone later tried to offer her £60000 for a 4yr old Audi Q7 with almost 200k miles on it :eek:. She pulled out at this point, too!

CK

eurozulu

It amazes me people fall for these tricks.
some people are obviously completely stupid.

Jox

I put a car up for sale on autostrader on Friday and I got the scam message as well, wish they would bog off!!!

Customer Details:
NAME: MR andrew simon
TELEPHONE:
EMAIL: andrewsimon212@gmail.com

Vehicle Details:
MAKE:
MODEL:
PRICE:

Message:
HELLO SELLER,
I SAW THE ADVERT OF YOUR CAR ON AUTOTRADER.CO.UK WHICH IS FOR SALE.I AM OKAY WITH THE CONDITIONS OF THE CAR AND I AM READY TO BUY FROM YOU. I AM BASED IN DUBLIN IRELAND ,BUT AT THE MOMENT AM ENGAGED IN A LOT OF THINGS TO COME FOR THE VIEWING OF THE CAR. AM OKAY WITH YOUR PRICE AND PICTURE OF THE CAR AND AM READY TO GIVE YOU EXTRA'S OF ?100 FOR SECURING OF THE CAR SO IT WOULD NOT BE SOLD TO ANOTHER BUYER ,AND FOR YOU TO KNOW HOW COMMITTED I AM IN BUYING FROM YOU.

I WILL LIKE YOU TO KNOW THAT I CAN'T COME FOR THE VIEWING OF THE CAR AS EARLIER STATED CAUSE I'M VERY BUSY AT WORK RIGHT NOW, BUT WITH WHAT I SAW ON THE ADVERT I AM SATISFIED.I WILL LIKE YOU TO SEND ME SOME PICTURES OF THE PRESENT LOOK OF THE CAR.I LOVE THIS PARTICULAR MODEL.I WILL BE VERY HAPPY IF THE
CAR IS MINE.

I WILL ALSO WANT YOU TO KNOW I WILL BE PAYING YOU WITH A BANKER'S DRAFT, THE AMOUNT ON THIS DRAFT WILL BE MORE THAN THE PRICE OF YOUR CAR[OVERPAYMENT].

THE EXCESS FUNDS ON THE DRAFT WILL BE FOR MY AGENT FOR PICKUP OF THE CAR AND SOME OF MY OTHER ITEMS I ALREADY BROUGHT INSIDE AND OUTSIDE UK .

ONCE YOU HAVE FUNDS CLEARED IN TO YOUR ACCOUNT YOU WILL DEDUCT YOUR TOTAL MONEY PLUS THE EXTRA\'S FROM THE FUNDS AND WIRE THE EXCESS TO MY AGENT FOR PICKUP, SO THAT THEY CAN PROCEED WITH THE NECESSARY PAPERWORK AND ARRANGE WITH YOU A CONVENIENT DATE AND TIME FOR PICKUP.

IF THIS IS OKAY BY YOU,YOU WILL HAVE TO GET BACK TO ME WITH SOME NECESSARY INFORMATION WHICH WILL BE NEEDED FOR THIS TRANSACTION TO PROCEED.

1
THE INFORMATION IS AS FOLLOW;
YOUR FULL NAME....
YOUR FULL ADDRESS WITH POSTCODE......
YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBERS BOTH OFFICE AND MOBILE/HOME NUMBERS...

N:B
THE NAME YOU GIVE WILL BE THE NAME YOU WILL SEE ON THE CHEQUE AND IT WILL BE SENT TO THE ADDRESS YOU MAIL TO ME.YOUR PHONE NUMBER IS FOR TIME TO TIME CONTACT.
ALSO IF ANY BUYER CONTACT YOU ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR CAR,PLEASE TELL THEM IT'S ALREADY BEEN SOLD CAUSE AM READY TO MAKE PAYMENT AS SOON AS I GET THOSE DETAILS NEEDED FROM YOU.

I AM TO A HAPPY TRANSACTION.

HOPING TO READ FROM YOU SOON.

REGARDS.
ANDREW SIMON.

tomwakefield

Jox wrote: »

I put a car up for sale on autostrader on Friday and I got the scam message as well, wish they would bog off!!!

Sadly, because of how cheap it is for them, and the potential returns, they only need a very small percentage of hits to make it a profitable endeavour.

By extension, spam emails must also be profitable for the spammers, otherwise they would stop. Ergo, there are people out there checking their emails and thinking "ooh...cheap viagra. I could go for some of that!"

stuart321

Unsolicited text from ukautobuyer.co.uk for a car advertised on autotrader and pistonheads offering a "We buy any car" type service suggesting they would pay full asking price.

Filled in the valuation which confirmed they would pay full asking price, confirmed appointment date & time (they come to you) and then ask for a refundable appointment fee of £50 to be paid by Ukash.

So offering full asking price, they visit you, you'll get the £50 refunded if you don't accept their offer, send the £50 via an unstoppable/untraceable route. Also the domain was registered 12th July 2012 so freshly started. Plenty of suspicious signs...

I have sent an email back to them offering to pay the appointment fee via creditcard in case its genuine but it sounds way too good to be true.

Stuart

grayme-m

stuart321 wrote: »

Unsolicited text from ukautobuyer.co.uk for a car advertised on autotrader and pistonheads offering a "We buy any car" type service suggesting they would pay full asking price.

Filled in the valuation which confirmed they would pay full asking price, confirmed appointment date & time (they come to you) and then ask for a refundable appointment fee of £50 to be paid by Ukash.

So offering full asking price, they visit you, you'll get the £50 refunded if you don't accept their offer, send the £50 via an unstoppable/untraceable route. Also the domain was registered 12th July 2012 so freshly started. Plenty of suspicious signs...

I have sent an email back to them offering to pay the appointment fee via creditcard in case its genuine but it sounds way too good to be true.

Stuart

...and if it sounds too good to be true?

I wouldn't even pay by credit card, it's not worth the hassle of charge back.

Plus of course, they won't take credit cards.

If it is refundable, why charge £50? It's a new play on the 'we match buyers and sellers' scam, just less plausible. I used to love winding up the matching scammers, 'sell my car for what I'm asking, and I'll pay you twice your fee on completion..... Whaddaya mean no deal, surely you'd take me up on that, you're not trying to scam me are you...?'