Is this dodgy?

cezalinho

Hello all,

I saw an advert for a used car on gumtree and it was about half the price that it normally would be. However when I checked for the other items being sold by this seller, I found many cheaper cars being listed across various towns. The funny thing is this seller also had cars being sold as a dealer in Devon. Those particular cars were at normal prices.

I suspected that the dealer's account had been hacked and these other cars had been added. I reported the post to gumtree and after an hour the cheaper cars were removed.

By that time I had contacted the seller via email. He claims that he is in Poland (but used to be in the UK when he got the car) and that he is no longer in need of his car. However since the Polish don't like right-hand drive cars, he was having difficulty selling it. He said that he would ship the car using an escrow shipping company and that the company would not release the fees to him until I had inspected the car.

I suspect that this is dodgy but I question how it could be. Why would he use an escrow if he was dodgy? Most scammers just ask for the money or a part of it to be transferred to them.

I am interested in knowing if this is a more sophisticated scam.

PETIE

He says an escrow service, did he say which ?

Some criminals setup fake but legitimate looking escrow websites that they control

marlot

Yes its a scam. The escrow doesn't exist. transfer the money, and you'll not see your money or the car again.

facade

No doubt it will be the escrow division of Paypal that hold the money.

Hint: they don't exist- the "trusted third party" is a scam website.

If it seems too good to be true: it is.

Don't know why the scammers don't offer them at 90% of the value, then people wouldn't suspect anything was wrong..

Dr._Shoe

It's a con.

Someone advertises an item for an unbelievable price and then claim to be too far away for you to go and get it. You have to pay for delivery and it doesn't come.

There is a scam doing the rounds on Freecycle along the same lines. They answer a wanted ad for, say a computer but they live in another part of the country but can arrange to get it shipped to you for £10. You pay it by paypal and then you get an email from a shipping company (often DHL Express UK Ltd, which doesn't exist, DHL Express Ltd. does) asking you to pay insurance. You go on the website and pay using your credit card or bank card and now they have your card details. They then send a phishing email from your bank and also another email suggesting a great add-on service from paypal which you have to input your paypal details (including password) to access. Since most people use the same password for everything they'll access your email accounts too.

cezalinho

Thanks all.

I checked the headers from his email and the IP address is from the USA. The car seems immaculate from the pictures although it is 5 years old.

I am going to find out what his escrow service is and tell the police about it.


Edit:

He sent me the escrow website: kraiss-logistic_dot_com

So how do I go about reporting it?

MysteryMe

Action Fraud

http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

cezalinho

MysteryMe wrote: »

Action Fraud

Thank you.

I actually found another car which has been clocked according to the HPI check. It seems like the used car market is a minefield. I will have to report both these people.

ChumpusRex

Highly likely to be a fake.

The Polish business register shows no records of a "Kraiss logistic" or any variant of that name.

The Web site appeared in December 2014, and the google street view from a couple of months ago shows an empty office building being advertised to let.

force_ten

How dodgy is it ?

Its well dodgy

you can find them on auto trader as well and you will be supprised how many fall for it

dacouch

If you use google chrome you can right click on the advert photos and then search google for the same photos.

This normally shows the original adverts the photos were copied from