Yet another eBay scam - warning

[monkie]

I saw a 2011 2.4 Tdci Defender station wagon for sale on ebay last night located in Bridgend. Asking price was just £10,500. The pictures looked great but were clearly taken at a dealer as you could see other land rovers for sale in the background of the photos.  

But for that price, and the apparent condition from the photos, it was clearly too good to be true. 

I checked it out first online, all came up clean. 

I sent the seller a message in ebay. Instantly got an out of office, but it stated to use an alternative email address. I was too tempted to see what he'd say so I messaged him pretending I wanted to buy it. 

His first mistake was that I knew his location from the ebay advert and his email address was his full name with year of birth. I googled the name, year and location and he came up on companies House with an extremely dodgy history. 

He replied to my email saying he was happy to sell it to me (lucky me). 

I asked when would be convenient to come and view it. He ignored my request and said he was away for 2 weeks as a tanker driver but he'd use ab escrow transport company (at his cost) to send it to me and I could return if I didn't want it (how thoughtful of him). 

I thanked him for his kind offer of arranging the transport, but I was in no rush and was more than happy to wait until he returned so I could come and view it. I also said that if I liked it, I would buy it and drive it home there and then. One other thing, the MOT expired on March 1st so I asked he planned to put it through an MOT before any sale. 

He ignored my requests and insisted on him arranging the transport. 

I just politely pointed out that this contained more red flags than I could shake a stick at and stated I am not interested. 

Please everyone beware of too good to be true sales. 

[monkie]

I don't want to get in trouble for naming anything if I shouldn't. 

Admins, @Hybrid_From_Hell, @Happyoldgit is it okay if I name the seller or put links to companies House so others can avoid this individual? 

[Stellaghost]

There was a load of this type of scamming a few year ago, with me it was motorhomes, did not fall for it, but it was exactly how you have stated, drop it off etc, it also appeared on Gumtree as well regards Stephen

[monkie]

Lower than market price to reel you in.

Email correspondence to take you away from ebay, gumtree etc. 

Won't let you see it, ebay advert disappeared as soon as I was emailing him and he thought I'd buy it. 

Talks about an escrow transport company... 

The land rover obviously wasn't there, he had just got some photos of one from a genuine dealer sale. I don't want others to fall in a trap and loose their money to scum bags like this. 

[Maverik]

Just report it via the ebay tool. I report fraud attempts regularly, they're usually pretty good at taking them off.

Yes post up details, most ebay scams are done through dormant hijacked accounts anyways.

[monkie]

2 minutes ago, Maverik said:

Just report it via the ebay tool. I report fraud attempts regularly, they're usually pretty good at taking them off.

Yes post up details, most ebay scams are done through dormant hijacked accounts anyways.

Yes the ebay account was a new one, but it was his email address, year of birth and location that showed his identity. What a fool. 

[sean f]

Just now, monkie said:

Yes the ebay account was a new one, but it was his email address, year of birth and location that showed his identity. What a fool. 

That does assume they email account isn't a fake or highjacked from some one else.

[monkie]

9 minutes ago, sean f said:

That does assume they email account isn't a fake or highjacked from some one else.

Yes that is true, I haven't met the person. However if you read up on him and go digging there is a lot of suspicious activity relating to that name for the past 8 or 9 years.

[monkie]

12 minutes ago, sean f said:

That does assume they email account isn't a fake or highjacked from some one else.

Yes that is true, I haven't met the person. However if you read up on him and go digging there is a lot of suspicious activity relating to that name for the past 8 or 9 years which involve the motor trade and finance. 

[Snagger]

12 hours ago, monkie said:

Yes that is true, I haven't met the person. However if you read up on him and go digging there is a lot of suspicious activity relating to that name for the past 8 or 9 years which involve the motor trade and finance. 

The CPS and judiciary are so weak that the same fraudsters operate with near impunity.  The law needs to be three things - simple enough to be understood and have no loopholes; fair enough to be respected, and; brutal enough to be feared.  All this lefty “softly-softly” approach just encourages criminality.

Thanks for the heads up.  There are the occasional desperate or unwitting below value sales, but they are rare.  Victims are often their own worst enemies, going for obvious scams, blinded by their greed.  Seen it a lot with “investment opportunities “.

[monkie]

Yes, totally agree ^^^

I've seen what look to me like scams before, but this one had so many warning signs before I even made contact and then when I did make contact it was literally like a textbook scam with all tricks being used:

• The price was about £8k under value (this is what grabbed my attention)
• The photos were clearly from a dealer as you could see many other cars for sale in the background (yet the user profile was not that of a dealer and had no other listings - where were the other vehicles for sale?)
• I checked out the car using a HPI check (I bought a bundle offer a while ago so used one up) it came out clean which made me even more suspicious that this is beyond too good to be true
• The ebay user profile was newly created, had nothing else listed and the user profile had no feedback score
• It wasn't listed anywhere else (gumtree, autotrader, Facebook market place etc), usually they are listed at least somewhere else if the ebay listing isn't an auction.

Then I contacted him saying I would like to come and have a look (in my experience every single genuine seller has welcomed this and especially with a Defender, won't mid you spending an hour underneath it inspecting the chassis, props, looking for leaks etc)

• The ebay message immediately bounced back with an out of office notification but contained a private email address of the format name.nameyear@btnet.info as the conversation progressed he switched to a different email account
• He immediatly replied to my email (but was apparently too busy to reply to my ebay message)
• He ignored my request to view it and immediately assumed I wanted to buy when I had never mentioned buying it
• The listing was then taken down off ebay as he thought I was either buying it or maybe reporting it
• He stated he was away from home for a while (as a tanker driver) so I couldn't come to see it first
• He was trying to pressure me into buying it now by saying there were two options to do it (use a holding company or paypal pay after delivery)
• I was trying to remove the pressure by saying "don't worry if you're busy, I'm in no rush, I'm happy to come when you are back home in a few week's time"
• He ignored my attempt at removing pressure, if anything he tried to ramp up the pressure more
• I asked about the MOT - he totally ignored my question and again tried to push me into buying it (at this point I politely told him I wasn't interested).
• The internet is a wonderful thing for finding out information on people if you search. I had a location, name and year of birth. There was quite a bit of information on him. He has been involved in many things that appear suspicious, some of which involve finance comapanies and also car dealerships.

In my experience of Land Rovers and meeting fellow enthusiasts (mostly on here), everyone has been friendly, helpful and knowledgable. This has not been an exception when I have shown interest in Defenders for sale. Any genuine seller will be more than happy to let you come and look at it first before even talking about money. Please see these red flags and if you sense something isn't right, walk away. This guy could have taken £10k off someone for a Land Rover I doubt he has never seen and I imagine you would have extreme difficulty getting your money back. £10k could be someone's life savings, these people make me so angry!

[sean f]

I agree the amount of scams is silly and how they keep on getting away with it is unbelievable, with the sums involved it should be possible to track the money, you may not ultimately get it back as it is likely to bounce faster than the authorities can keep up but at a minimum they should be able to trace and shut down accounts it goes through, gets difficult if it goes overseas but all the UK ones should be fair game.

A while back I posted up a similar scam with a lathe, the pictures had been cropped from a previous eBay ad, I know exactly where the lathe actually is so knew it was fake beyond question, it was advertised in the Shetlands possible to discourage viewings. I got very similar responses, ignored request to view it, said I was through Sumburgh regularly so could drop in when ever suited him, nothing. I reported it to eBay as did the original seller who's pictures were used, the ad got removed but I have no idea if it was buy the "seller" or eBay.

If you want a good laugh, there is a scam busters site and what they do to see how far scammers will go is hilarious.

[monkie]

I did see that post, it was interesting reading. The way I look at it is that most of us have our heads screwed on and can spot these scams, but many people can't. I often think the trick ebay use is that you start picturing yourself with the item so you will bid more. This also happens with the scams: You see a really nice Land Rover Defender that you can afford. You start to picture yourself enjoying days out in it. This then can make some people blind to red flags as they are now led by their heart and not their head. Boom, £10k gone and never seen again.

I picked this scam out because I have never seen one before with so many classic red flags all at once. I have no idea what happens when stuff is reported to ebay. Do they remove the listing? Do they delete or freeze the user account? So what, the person can pop up again with another user account using a different email address and they can get more photos elsewhere of what ever item they use to draw people in. They always seem to be on holiday, away with work, visiting family overseas or as you say, in a part of the country that is inaccessible to 99% of potential buyers.