As a few of you may have spotted there have been a few dodgy ads appearing in the PH Classifieds section recently. We do try and filter out as many of these ads as possible but some are slipping through the net. Thanks to eagle eyed readers e mailing us with their suspicions we have managed to keep most off the pages of PH.
They usually aren’t that hard to spot, often offering a desirable car for a ‘too good to be true’ price (Ferrari 360 Modena for £19,500, anyone?). They ARE too good to be true, so please don’t express any interest in these cars, but please e mail me at adverts@pistonheads.com and I’ll get the advert removed
If you do email the seller you’ll usually get a long winded reply telling you about the unusual circumstances the ‘seller’ is in why the car is going for a stupidly knocked down rate. You’re also likely to be told that the car is in perfect condition and waiting in Europe and ready to be shipped.
If you pursue this further, you’ll find that you have to pay a not insignificant amount of money into an account as a form of deposit for transport costs. That is the last you’ll see of your cash and the final communication from the ‘seller’.
We know that some people do sell their cars at a lower rate for quick sales, but they are less likely to ask for cash first, and are probably not looking to sell for tens of thousands less that it’s true worth.
When you’re perusing the ads section, please ensure to talk directly to the seller either by email (more than a few times and look out for automated responses that don’t answer direct questions) or better still by phone.
We are trying to build a system where these ads can be filtered out automatically by our servers, but that is a few weeks away yet. I can’t express my annoyance enough that these lowlifes are trying to spoil PH, if any scammers are reading this be warned we are watching you- all 1.5 million of us………