Reply With QuoteObv a scam - and using common information and reasons found on so many
In Scotland
Working abroad
Working offshore (often)
Delivery company
Escrow.
Surprised you lasted this long, to be honest.
Following on from my previous thread, last week I contacted the alleged owner of this S Class.
305217267594
He made contact with me by email and below is the contents of our conversation
Hello,
I am glad that you are interested in my vehicle.
It is still for sale and the actual price is £15,300.
The V5 document is present in my name, it has current MOT certificate and a full service history.
The vehicle is being sold as described, no mechanical or electrical issues, it has never been involved in any accidents.
If you want more information&photos plus details on how we can close this deal do not hesitate to contact me and I will respond at my earliest convenience.
Thank you
Thank you for your reply.
But could you please remind me which Mercedes S Class it is?
I have been looking at so many over the past week, that I am getting myself confused.
His next email, contained lots of details of the vehicle, including the VIN number, which checked out and a load of photos.
The car looked exactly what I was looking for.
So my next reply was as follows
Thank you for the photos, it looks in a lovely condition.
What is the best contact number to call you on?
What is the service history?
His reply back really surprised me!
Hello,It comes with full service history. Would it not be possible to email me, I have given my number only to be inundated with text messages and phone calls.
I did not have enough time to sell the vehicle before my departure from England and since I am in Scotland now there are only 2 ways to do this sale:
* The first option is to use a transport company that deals with the transaction, vehicle and money as escrow. I travel for my work and I do not have time to bring the vehicle and I think your free time is limited too, so this is the perfect way to make things easier, faster and safe for both of us. I will pay the company, so you will not pay extra money then the vehicle price. You will get the vehicle to your home address, and you can check the vehicle before making the final decision. I think this is the perfect way for us.
* The second option is by using PayPal pay after delivery service.
Please let me know how you want to continue with this transaction and I will provide more details.
Regards,
My reply back
I am nervous by doing how you suggested purely as I like to speak directly to the seller, to build up a repore.
There is a saying in the Watch community “Buy the seller not the watch”
Is this a private sale, as its being advertised via a dealers training name, though not showing up on their stock.
Would you mind taking some photos, showing the service records?
Sorry for being so cautious, but we live in Devon, so not easy to view cars.
Kind Regards
Again his reply was
Hi,You only need the registration with vin and mot number for hpi. I already verified everything with eBay so I can sell and I got this notice:
Never reply to an email that asks for personal information or copies of your vehicle documentation including the service history and MOT. Keep vehicle documentation secure at all times. I am very sorry for the inconvenience. I am just trying to sell it safely.
I recently moved and forgot to change my location. Currently in Scotland, I am offering free delivery. We can do everything through the transport company using Shiply, they will take care of everything and arrange the delivery to your address. If this is going to be a quick sale, I will let it go for £15,300 with the delivery charges included. If you decide to buy the vehicle let me know, as I have a lot of people inquiring about it and send me an email with your full details (Full name, Address, Phone number). As soon as I have your details I will pass them to the shipping company and they will start the procedures. Next step they will get in touch with you and send you an invoice for the vehicle, the tracking number to check the status of the delivery at any time and all the rest of the transaction details. After you've received the invoice you'll need to make the payment by bank transfer to the transport company (NOT to me) and they will hold the money into their bank account until you receive, inspect and agree to keep the vehicle. For the buyer's peace of mind I've also added a 7 days REFUND POLICY so if you don't like the vehicle, you'll receive a full refund, no fees or taxes deducted. If the vehicle is not as described, the transport company will transfer the money back into your bank account. If you decide to keep the vehicle after the 7 days inspection period, you will need to sign the owner transfer papers and only then I will get the money from the transport company.
Regards,
My final reply was as follows
Thanks for the additional information.
And as much as the car looks lovely.
I am going to decline your offer.
As the whole process doesn’t sit comfortably with me.
So best of luck with the sale
Kind Regards
After that I heard nothing further, and I saw that all the cars he was advertising had disappeared from Ebay. So I felt that my gut reaction was correct. That was until last night, when his advert appeared again, as per my link above.
This time I attempted to contact Austin Autos, who appear to be a genuine company in Grimsby - though none of the cars appear on their website, so far I haven't heard back from them.
Will be interesting to see what happens.
Now am I being paranoid or is the seller just being careful?
Hopefully, those who are far more savvy, than I can help.
Having reached out to other sellers I have not encountered this reaction.
Obv a scam - and using common information and reasons found on so many
In Scotland
Working abroad
Working offshore (often)
Delivery company
Escrow.
Surprised you lasted this long, to be honest.
RUN A MILE.
Absolute load of old cobblers. Run away.
Sent from my M2101K6G using Tapatalk
It’s a well known scam that someone at work fell for and it cost them 10k.Originally Posted by Topcat30093
someone tried this on me on a couple of occasions a few years back I even offered to take a day off work to view the car my last message to them said they wouldn’t be seeing a penny till I saw the car in person never heard from them again
As others have said, run a mile!
There are plenty of others to choose from.
Interesting if you look at what else he has for sale
To be fair, I wanted to see how far it would go, as I was not at any risk.
But, how do they get away with using, what appears to be a genuine Car Dealer?
You know it’s a scam, but have some fun now - think of the 419 scams, see if you can get a photo, or some deposit as a trust payment.
I’m bored currently and tempted!
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'Ta ra then' by the second e-mail.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
A pretty obvious scam from the outset
Just sniff this passage:
I travel for my work and I do not have time to bring the vehicle and I think your free time is limited too, so this is the perfect way to make things easier, faster and safe for both of us. I will pay the company, so you will not pay extra money then the vehicle price. You will get the vehicle to your home address, and you can check the vehicle before making the final decision. I think this is the perfect way for us.
569 cars for sale and every single one is in a different location.
If you can't work it out you almost deserve to get rinsed.
Age-old scam but one that's easy to fall for. Strangely enough every time i have seen this it's been Scotland given as a location... the other details change, sometimes it's a soldier "unexpectedly deployed before I've had chance to sell the car"
Other times it's an oil-rig worker. Always Scotland though. Perhaps the Nigerian scammers think its inaccessible to most of us Brits.
Call to the Austin’s autos number ought to clear it up one way or the other.
I'm very close to Grimsby if a drive by stock recce is of any help?
Clearly a scam. Report him.
I've mentioned before about the same scam operating on Facebook Marketplace, resulting in many cars being offered on there significantly underpriced.
Examples:
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...4-b1507fb8809b
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...code=undefined
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
These puzzle me, as they stand out as clear and obvious scams. Why not price the thing £1000 lower than market value? Surely a better way to catch a fish
Literally in the last few minutes, the S class & every other listing have vanished. Just a single listing for £200 in board motor mounts now.
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One of the first things that I noted.
Took a look myself this morning, as it was in my Watch List.
Heard nothing back from Austin Autos, who seem to be a genuine dealer.
The name -allegedly of the chap who emailed me was: Peter Elson
Facebook marketplace is infested with this crap now seems every other ad is a car scam
There’s very more of them appearing nowadays.
Whilst the two I linked are so obviously low-priced there’s plenty of others that are closer to the going marketplace rate to appeal.
Caveat emptor.
R
PS. If you thought odometer clocking was a thing of the past on modern vehicles, then think again.
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
True, there was a guy in work who would set the mileage to whatever you asked for £200 via his laptop.
Scamtastic!
Report to Action Fraud and others.
Of course we’d expect a wind-back would be picked up by the MOT test, however they only commence after 3 years…
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
There would be no physical wind back, as the odometers concerned were digital only. I don't know the technicalities but basically the guy reset that part of the memory in the cars electrical system and apparently there was no trace. I know loads of people who used his 'services' and nobody ever had a comeback.
I never had it done, but the reason wasn't to get more money selling the car, it was to avoid the mileage penalty for going over the agreed yearly limit in the pcp agreement. Of course, it still means that the next owner is buying a higher mileage car than they think they have, and so I don't condone it in any way.
Scamtastic!
Facebook marketplace is the best one to find scammers, just look at the price of some of the Landy defender 90s!, super cheap!
I'm guessing they've hacked the user profile to appear more legit ?
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too many red flags, if it was legit somehow it just wasn't meant to be, move on
So he is trying again!!!!!
134784713904
But this time using another genuine dealer, based in Truro!
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