Thursday, 29 May 2014

Car Fraud Help buying a car via the internet.

Well the amount of people getting caught by this old scam still shocks me. It gets a range of people from all walks of life and from a different degree of education and backgrounds. Yes even I was narrow minded enough to think only the less educated part of the public would be caught out by this scam, fact is I've known a good spread of people who've all been Had and come to ask me for advise on trying to get there money back.

I best explain what this scam is first. It typically starts out with a very genuine advert on a car selling website and as I've found out it can be listed as a private seller or even trader. You agree by phone, email or even some times text you want to buy this car send over the money in hopes to collect it or have it delivered, then you hear nothing and you can't reach the seller anymore and well you come to the sinking feeling you've been scammed and your moneys gone!

Now this normally happens with high ticket vehicles but its not limited to them! We've seen it happen with £40,000 cars and £10,000 cars so if your buying a car you could be next.

These con artist are very good at what they do, they lay the bait and let you bite and reel your self in they are typically offshore so once you send your money its gone! Police can't help you and neither can your bank as you sent cleared FUNDS!

Firstly lets explain how I spot these adverts, they normally steal other traders adverts or private punters adverts they take the photos and reuse them sometimes WEEKS or MONTHS after the original advert. They typically offer the car as a MASSIVE discount in one example a £40,000 car was selling for £10,000. Now if you see this walk away now there's no more investigation you need to do its a scam follow the old rule "if its too good to be true then....."
However the discount price can be smaller for example a £10,000 car for £8,000 slightly possible but highly unlikely, first thing to ask you self is would a dealer buy the car for more than the asking price? use one of the well known buying any car services, if yes RUN AGAIN!

Now so far these adverts have followed a pattern but what if the price is pretty much the same as other cars of the same year and mileage and the advert looks genuine, well the other give away is the advert stating an email and asking you to email them rather than call, when you do try call them the number either doesn't work or goes to a fax number. Now that in it self doesn't mean its a scam they may have used the wrong number or they may be sick of getting calls while there working.

So you've gone threw all the following and your 100% sure its not a scam, well this is where most people trip up and why it even sucks in the most savvy of people, Until you've seen the car, sat in it and checked its HPI clear while sat in front of it then it could always be a scam, always HPI a car why your with it as anyone can send you a reg of another car its another thing checking your self and checking the VIN number on the vehicle, HPI report and logbook all match.

My rule of thumb to not get caught out by these scams was never buy a car privately without viewing first that includes leaving a deposit for it. However these scam artist now have been placing adverts using trade ads and using a fake dealer website so how do you protect your self now? sometimes a dealer may have a car you really want at a great price and you can't make it down till weekend but you want to reserve it or pay for it in full. Well first check the site out see how long its been registered using what's known as a WHOIS search. If the website has only been created a month ago but the company site says they been trading 10 years I'd wonder if the age of the internet why they didn't have a site even 4 years ago. Google the company try find some reviews on websites like google and freeindex there's many other review sites out there so see what comes up. Your safest bet is to leave a deposit using your credit card make a payment of £200 and your covered under the credit protection act. What's more is your covered for the FULL AMOUNT of the car so if you then pay a further £9000 by bacs your protected. As long as you make a payment of £100 the whole transaction is protected this doesn't cover DEBIT CARDS however please check with your card issuer.

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