RS4 Scam

[M12GTO3R]

There's a red 2006 RS4 in the classifieds for £19900.
I've emailed the moderators reporting it as a scam but it still exists.
There are a number of overly cheap cars being sold by the same seller.
It's so obvious I struggle not to see it as a joke but maybe it's a legitimate scam.
After contacting the seller I got this reply.
Am I missing something?


Hello John,

We are an online dealer and we do not have agents in the field. We have our cars at an worldwide shipping company (you may find additional information about this shipping company at www.global--transport.com) already crated, insured and ready to be shiped to our future buyers. You will be able to inspect the car at your door together with your mechanic and a representativ from the shipping company and if you will decide to reject you may use the 5 days return policy that we provide for this type of deals (all returns work on a NOW QUESTION ASK policy and all costs are suported by our company).

All payments will be made directly to the escrow department from our shipping company or to a reputable escrow service such as www.escrow-europa.com (payment is required after the shipping is started and after you receive the tracking number for your package)

Please mail me back if you need additional information, than you.

James

[M12GTO3R]

Done that twice and included my evidence.

[David Godfrey]

got a link?

[Jem0911]

I emailed too and the scammers are dealers who pay pistonheads to advertise.
JJ Hunt here's there M3
http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/sales/309691.htm

[LukeBird]

Ooooh an M3 at £11.5k.
Now thats a bargain!!

[Jem0911]

The rest of the stock is commedy too

[esselte]

Jem0911 said:

I emailed too and the scammers are dealers who pay pistonheads to advertise.
JJ Hunt here's there M3
http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/sales/309691.htm

A load of JJ Hunt adverts were removed over the weekend I think,how are they advertising again?

[Jem0911]

I know strange vetting system?
But PH gets squids per listing so at least they paying for something,
I think its £18 + vat (by escrow) per car.

[stigmundfreud]

daily sport journalism and now daily sport style advertising

still so long as the money is coming in its buyer beware?

[Garlick]

Morning all

It is amazing that these guys have started paying for scams, and it's something that resident Techie Mr Will spotted a few days back- and has been deleting accounts and setting up barriers ever since.

I hope that my previous posts and news pieces show you how absolutely fed up I am about scammers ruining the site, and eliminating them sits as number one priority for the team every day.

There is one good thing to come out of this- we want the classifieds to stay free, although some have suggested that paying for an advert would stop scammers placing adverts. This case shows that to be untrue, and paying does not stop them, meaning that arguement no longer holds water. Great news for free classifieds on PH

I have now joined forces with the Police and plan to meet with other leading websites soon (E Bay, Auto Trader etc) with the Police so we can work on ending scams for good.

Bottom line is, we never expected fraudsters to use our dealer system, and we just weren't prepared, now we are putting systems in place to stop it happening

Cheers for your support and understanding

G

[Jem0911]

Well played Paul,
I hope their fees cleared.

[stigmundfreud]

The only real way to stop fraud for good is to close the advertising down. I seriously hope this meeting hasnt got "stop fraud for good" as part of the agenda as that is simply a pipe dream. Certainly keep the ads free but a vetting system could easily be put into place to check out the adverts before they go live. Maybe add a 48 hour window from an ad being placed to it appearing to give the team the chance to vet. I dont think it would cause much of an impact if you charged something silly like £1.50 an ad to cover telephone costs for the team to call back the advertiser.

Please though, tell me the meeting isnt to "stamp out fraud for good" - otherwise I know a raft of consultants that are in the sidelights rubbing their hands together with glee

[Garlick]

stigmundfreud said:

Please though, tell me the meeting isnt to "stamp out fraud for good"

Nah, not at all. A decent bloke at the Met (a PHer too) was fed up with the whole scam thing so decided that the blokes who run the larger classified websites should actually talk to one another- rather than being competitors. He will chair the meeting and offer us some advice too.

The agenda is for us all to share what we do to filter out scammers and share good ideas between us- we can't stop it (as you say) but we can make life more difficult for them.

Cheers
G

[stigmundfreud]

Good luck with it, worked helping the met for a long time and the truth is a lot of good inention goes a very short way. Do you not have a tea boy/network admin who can check out the adds as tehy are placed?

[Garlick]

stigmundfreud said:

Good luck with it, worked helping the met for a long time and the truth is a lot of good inention goes a very short way. Do you not have a tea boy/network admin who can check out the adds as tehy are placed?

We do indeed- he trawls through around 300 suspect ads a day- but we get 800 a day submitted so, I admit, there is still some way to go

[stigmundfreud]

Garlick said:

stigmundfreud said:

Good luck with it, worked helping the met for a long time and the truth is a lot of good inention goes a very short way. Do you not have a tea boy/network admin who can check out the adds as tehy are placed?

We do indeed- he trawls through around 300 suspect ads a day- but we get 800 a day submitted so, I admit, there is still some way to go

sounds almost as hit and miss as our spam filter provider. Yesterday you received 30000 mails of which we blocked 2.

good luck with it

[MotorFocus]

If the ad system is driven by a DB of cars where, to place an ad, you pick the make, model, version, age, mileage etc, why not have it cross reference a Glass's-type DB of current values and if the ad price differs by, say, 15% or more the ad gets referred for manual approval?

Depending how this was done, it could be offered as an extra bit of service to legit advertisers by advising them of a guide price at the time they're advertising.

Downside, apart from setup and cost, is that such a scheme would struggle to cope with exotic, niche or classic models - although I guess that scammers tend to operate more on low-volume but in-demand prestige (such as the RS4 and M3 cited above) than models with a more limited market where buyers are more aware.

[stigmundfreud]

be also fairly easy to do a vin/reg check too as if done with the DVLA it could help

a.) Prevent a lot of fraud ads over night
b.) Potentially find cloned cars
c.) Potentially find stolen cars

If ever car sales place did this, over night it would hamper the fraudsters

[V8S]

Whatever systems are put in place is better than none, so well done PH for acknowledging there's a problem that needs addressing and taking steps to limit the damage. There will never be a way of ensuring all adverts are genuine, save individually vetting each and every one in person with background checks.

This website isn't a subscription service - it's free, which some people seem to forget - so we have to place our trust in the chaps behind the scenes doing what they can to make it solvent and usable for as many of us punters as possible.

Hope the meeting with autotrader et al throws up some useful tips.

[Garlick]

stigmundfreud said:

be also fairly easy to do a vin/reg check too as if done with the DVLA it could help

a.) Prevent a lot of fraud ads over night
b.) Potentially find cloned cars
c.) Potentially find stolen cars

If ever car sales place did this, over night it would hamper the fraudsters

We are just about to implement this- literally finalising the deal this week