Scam buyer on my car!

obi_waynne

obi_waynne

Administrator
Staff member
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Points
1,157
Location
Deal, Kent UK
Car
A3 1.4 TFSI 150 COD
Had an enquiry via email no telephone number given!

The following customer is interested in the vehicle you are advertising on
http://www.autotrader.co.uk

Received: 6 May 2013 15:49

Customer Details:
NAME: MR Gerald Dawson
TELEPHONE:
EMAIL: g.dawsonn6920@gmail.com

Vehicle Details:
MAKE: AUDI
MODEL: A4
PRICE: £8700

Message:
Hi, is this car still available for sale, what is its condition and final price? Regards, Gerald.



Hi Gerald,

The car had only just been advertised this afternoon. We are looking for a quick sale so have priced it accordingly.

I strongly recommend an early viewing as it will sell quickly, we have already had some enquiries about the car.

Call me if you have any questions or to arrange a viewing ...



Hi,

Thanks for the prompt response. I am ready to buy it now as a birthday gift for my brother-in-law. I am at the sea at the moment as I am a marine engineer and due to the nature of my work, phone call and visiting of websites are restricted but I just have to squeezed out time to check this advert and send you an email regarding it. I really want the car to be a surprise package for my brother-in-law so I won't let him know anything about the car until it gets delivered to him, I am sure he will be more than happy with the car. I insist on PayPal as my mode of payment because I don't have access to my bank account online and also, I don't have internet banking, but I can pay from my PayPal account. I have my bank account attached to my PayPal account, so I will need you to get back to me with your PayPal email address and your final price as I am not good at offering so I can make the payment for the car asap. Please if you don't have a PayPal account yet, it is very easy to set up, log on to www.paypal.com and get it set up. After you have set it up, I will only need the e-mail address you used for the registration with PayPal so as to put the money through. I have a pick up agent that will come and pick up the car after I must have made the payment for the car and funds available in your account.

My Regards.

Dear Gerald

Thanks for your interest in my car. I am so happy to sell it to you and so quickly.

Please wire over £9000 - I know this is slightly higher than the advertised price but I have to cover the paypal fees my paypal address is xxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.com.

I am happy for your buyer to collect it from me the trouble is I'm often out and about but I can leave it at my work address with a colleague whom I trust to handle things on my behalf.

As for Nick Menow at Deal Police Station London road Deal Kent CT14 9TF.

I do require a deposit however, as we have never met and will never meet you so I'd appreciate it if you could transfer a nominal £100 to my account details 00-00-00 123456789 - I know you don't have internet banking but I'm sure you can get such a nominal fee transferred over to me by a friend or relative.

I know what these collection agents are like with their fees, would you like to add the fees to the cost of the car and I'll pay your guy in cash when he arrives and hand over the keys and car to him.

Best regards,

Waynne

I'll let you know if I sell it! ;)

If you want some fun just send the guy an email g.dawsonn6920@gmail.com along the lines of thanks for enquiring about "the car" through autotrader, the details are.... and the price is and see if he replies to you. I doubt he even remembers which cars he contacts people about.
 
Their shameless these scammers and to try an old scam like this they must be thick!
 
That's someone else who must drink an awful lot of Horlicks or Ovaltine to be able to sleep nights :sad2:
 
That sort of pond life have no problem sleeping as they have no morals and no conscience.
 
Going to sound stupid here but I can't see where the OBVIOUS scam is...obviously when the guy offers to pay full price straight away then that would make me wonder but am I not seeing something obvious?
 
That is why I posted this, to make those not aware of this scam wise to it.

Payment comes through, usually with some extra to cover his shipping costs. You pay the shipping guy his cash and he goes of with the car.

Soon the transaction is reversed due to fraud and the money credited to my account disappears leaving me short of a car and the money I paid the courier.

Cash or direct bank transfers are usually the safest but ask your bank first to be sure. Just because a cheque is cashed it doesn't mean it will be honoured. Even a fake cheque will show as a credit for a week or so.
 
Also bear in mind that the guy is a ghost - all I have is a gmail address from him. No number, address our account details.

He's also buying the car without seeing it and hadn't asked any obvious questions about the car.
 
hmm...surely this is easily tracked though isn't it?
I'm guessing he makes a new fake paypal account so that isn't traceable, but surely the bank account attached to the paypal is in somebody's name?
this plus the messages that you have saved making the arrangements.....
but then again after all this if all details are fake then everybody can claim to not know anything about it....harsh scam.

Too many scumbags out there...I couldn't do it to somebody.

I thought PayPal was a more secure way to pay for things :s
 
No it's not secure for transactions like this one - the paypal could be a stolen/hijacked account, he could have used a fake or stolen card through paypal and a Gmail address is pretty much untraceable. His original IP address was logged by autotrader though but there is very little for me to go on.

Paypal is generally very insecure, chargebacks are quite easy to do.
 
Am I being thick?

If he pays you, then whats the problem?

I'd easy be ripped off lol. I just wouldn't want to be the guy to rip me off once I find out LOL!!! :D
 
You'd never find him, that's the problem, he doesn't exist. Even cheques can be withdrawn up to a certain point, most banks are 10 days clearance for full approval. Cash is king or a bankers draft but accompany the drawer to the bank.
There's so many ways to fraudulently buy stuff now, it's a bloody minefield.
 
Cash in pay pal is not a done deal. You can even withdraw it to your account and it can be clawed back.

The key thing is to have cleared funds, they are only yours to keep when they have cleared.
 
Every payment made by PayPal has a rider saying something along the lines of "be aware that a chargeback can still be made on this payment".

This means that PayPal can reclaim the money if, for example, the seller claims they haven't received their goods or the money came from a hacked account.

If you have removed the money from your account it will be frozen until you replace it. I don't know what legal recourse they have if you refuse and don't use PayPal again.
 
I modify that statement slightly

"If it looks too good to be true, it is too god to be true". Saves you a lot of grief.
 
A very dangerous game you're playing there Waynne, I would not even contemplate baiting a scammer unless you are bullet proof. They have a nasty habbit of having friends that can do nasty things to your kneecaps if you cross them.
 
Had a similar scammer contact me when i tried to sell my sister's 1997 Chrysler Concorde LX about 7 years ago. Guy backed down as soon as I requested cash and in person.

Car in question (surprised I still have pictures of it)
09_28_2.jpg

09_30_2.jpg

10_03_0.jpg
 
claymore said:
A very dangerous game you're playing there Waynne, I would not even contemplate baiting a scammer unless you are bullet proof. They have a nasty habbit of having friends that can do nasty things to your kneecaps if you cross them.
Click to expand...
I appreciate your concern, but I never used to let the bullies have free reign at school, unless people stand up to these thugs then it's the poor, naive and defenseless that lose out. The amount of times I stepped in to help other kids out was unreal. I got threats, I got beaten up but the bad guys ALWAYS GO DOWN in the end and the good majority wins.

I have a lot of friends as well and am incredibly well connected, and can really make it not worth someones time to try anything on with me.
 
These people are trying this scam with thousands of cars so they won't waste time on scams that aren't working out they will simply move on to the next potential sucker.
 
I placed my car for sale on Autotrader recently.

I got an email from Gerald Dawson geraldndawson@gmail.com with the same text

"Thanks for the prompt response. I am ready to buy it now as a birthday gift for my brother-in-law. I am at the sea at the moment as I am a marine engineer and due to the nature of my work, phone call and visiting of websites are restricted but I just have to squeezed out time to check this advert and send you an email regarding it. I really want the car to be a surprise package for my brother-in-law so I won't let him know anything about the car until it gets delivered to him, I am sure he will be more than happy with the car. I insist on PayPal as my mode of payment because I don't have access to my bank account online and also, I don't have internet banking, but I can pay from my PayPal account. I have my bank account attached to my PayPal account, so I will need you to get back to me with your PayPal email address and your final price as I am not good at offering so I can make the payment for the car asap. Please if you don't have a PayPal account yet, it is very easy to set up, log on to www.paypal.com and get it set up. After you have set it up, I will only need the e-mail address you used for the registration with PayPal so as to put the money through. I have a shipper that will come and pick up the car after I must have made the payment for the car and funds available in your account.

My Regards."

Sounded odd so I searched and found this thread. I will ignore the message.
 
Greetings defender and a Warm Welcome to our TorqueCars Forum my Friend!
Good to have you along with us :)

Thanks for sharing that with us buddy!

*I let your post through as it had relevance to the thread, but for the future you will need to have made 10 posts before the system will allow you to post any photos or URL's - this helps to protect us from the spammers!*
 
Thats why I posted this thread to warn others. I see he's still up to his old tricks. Will these people ever learn!
 
It seems that Autotrader have taken no action to my reporting this email to them originally. They should have at least blocked this email account from their site!
 
Another day another scammer.

Another name to watch out for using the exact same scam (who responded to my car for sale on Autotrader).

Megan Spearman using this email spearman_megan@outlook.com

Email 1
"Thank you for getting back to me. how long have you owned it? Can you assure me that its in good condition and that i will not be disappointed with it. whats your asking price."

So after reading that I was already thinking WHF?

Then She/He/It asked "WHATS YOUR ASKING PRICE?" again odd as it is clearly stated in my autotrader advert.

Then as expected the finale

"I Agree with price you willing to sell it , i will be happy to paying directly into your paypal account without any delay. I would have prefer to see or inspection it but am busy, i work long hours everyday,i have gone through your advertisement and i am satisfied with it.As for the payment..i will be paying you with the fastest and secure way to pay online(PayPal).
I have a private courier agent that will come over for the pick up at your door after the payment have been made, .You can now send me your PayPal email so i can pay in right away and also include your address in your reply.If you don't have a paypal account, you can easily set up one...log on to www.paypal.com and sign up. its very easy.I await your reply asap"

Yawn.
 
Wait till you get the "your autotrader account is compromised we need you to log in to our fake site so we can steal your password email."
 
oh great, I'll look out for that!

Got another one which asked me to confirm if the url they sent was my listing. The URL was a malware site! My security picked it up so no issue but my experience with selling my car via AT has thus far been a pain in the arse.

I genuine response vs 4 turds
 
The 'your account's been compromised' is a frequent one;Paypal, Ebay etc. have all been 'aped'. They are dead easy to spot though.

I log in with any old nonsense password and write nasty things in the detail fields they're asking me to complete :D
 
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