'Importing to France'

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Hello all - I'm after a little advice if you please

Sadly, despite only having my Caterham since July I need to sell it (long story short - my GF has taken voluntary redundancy and we are trying to get a business started, so any and all cash is needed!).

Anyway, I have it up on the PH classifieds and have recieved an email from someone who wants (possibly) to import it to France but he needs the first 12 numbers from the VIN (or SN, as he says) as she says only some cars can be imported.

His email started 'I am interested in your Caterham All Models', and to be honest if I was selling a normal car my scam sense would be yelling 'don't touch this with a large stick', but I am aware that the market for these cars is a little different.

So, in brief, is there any truth in his claim that only some cars can be improted to France (surely it's the same acorss the EU?) and would there be any scam involving the VIN number?

I would of course take all the usual precautions with regards to payments.

Cheers

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GreigM said:

My scam detector is ringing loudly here. The "Caterham All Models" stuff suggests this is an automated scam, which picks up make/model from the classifieds grouping. The automated script dangles the "hook" and waits for a response - when you respond you will likely then be engaged by a person who will perform the attempted scamming.

However, if it wasn't a scam then yes, there are restrictions on what models can be imported to France, and the Caterham is not homologated, so generally it can't be legally registered in France without some sort of fiddle where the registered keeper is still in the UK - although I stand to be corrected.

There is also no real harm in sending someone your VIN, they can't really do anything nefarious with it, but it does tell the scammer you are a live "fish".

If it were me, I'd be ignoring that email.

Cheers - pretty much my thoughts, though the fact that there are restrictions might (only might!) suggest that it's real.

I will ignore it for now and see if there's any follow up email which might point to it being genuine. Even if it is though, the ad has only been live for a couple of days so I'd rather avoid the hassle of an export sale unless I get really desperate for a buyer.

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Abbott said:

Of course you need to be cautious but importing a 7 into France is far from straight forward and absolutely has nothing to do with there being unified EU regulations on the subject. This is France you are dealing with.
If you want to bring a car into france then there a number of factors that can very easily be cleared up by understanding the the VIN number.

The 1st point for an importer to understand is if the vehicle is factory built or Kit built. Kit built is a no no and would be very difficult to pass the authorities.
The next txtep is to check if teh vehicle is on the list of already accepted and homolgated vehicles in France

Les seuls modèles de Caterham homologués par type en France sont celles équipées avec :
le moteur Ford 1600 GT, moteur Rover 1400K, 1600K, 1800 VVC, moteur Opel HPC ainsi que les plus récents modèles ayant obtenu une homologation européenne (Ford Sigma et Ford Duratec 175).


So basically the Rover engined cars and the old crossflows, VX and some of teh more modern Fords

If your man is genuine then he will want to check the VIN number as buting the wrong type of car can be excrutiatingly painful.
Also in France the same 7 will cost at least twice ase much as in UK

Ok, that's interesting, thanks. I'm pretty sure that my car was built by a race company, so I don't know if that makes it a kit (I guess it does, as it wasn't built by Caterham). It is a K-series, so it would be ok there.

I suppose there's no harm in pinging the VIN over to him.

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Abbott said:

Yes, you dont have to give the last few digits that would uniquly identify your car.

This is the sort of inf he will be checking your VIN against

http://sevener.fr/article.php?id=88815&ref=957...
Ther eis a little French there but most is understandable English

Ah - ok. He only asked for the first 12 numbers/letters so maybe he is genuine.

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rotorwings said:

There are very few common rules for importing vehicles into the continent. Every country seems to have its own process, often with illogical requirements.
I imported a Caterham from the UK and registered it in Germany, and I still don't fully understand everything So expect some questions that might sound 'not right' by UK standards, and don't be surprised if even the buyer is confused.

Remember, the language barrier might make something sound more suspicious than it is, but If at all in doubt ask for copies of photo IDs.
Being that you are the seller, you really hold all the cards. My own story of buying a UK car sight-unseen from Germany included many small points that could have appeared 'suspicious', but were all completely above board.

Cheers - he's been back in touch today so I think it's probably on the level. Still not sure I want to get involved in all the potential hassle, but a buyer is a buyer I guess.