New phishing scam to be wary of whilst selling on here

[Badda]

Got a prime check request here for boat. Name of James Fane and Jason Fane, keeps changing

[itcaptainslow]

The spam emails seem to have tailed off - it seems they target when the listing is new. I lost count when the number of them got to ten…

All had pretty much the same opening text “I’m interested in this car. Is it still available?” and were from a Gmail account

[Buster73]

Numerous emails today , none of them asking the right questions.

A bit tedious now mind.

[Vtec-yo]

Couple more theprimecheck email address for the list

Adam Son • [e-mail]
Carlos Erickson • [e-mail]
Archbald Morris • [e-mail]

Presume they're friends (ie same person) as the rest stopped emailing after told the first they weren't getting any reports.

Btw isn't Archibald Morris the doctor in ER? Wonder why he wants to buy my car......?

[itcaptainslow]

Mr Scruff said:

Add me to the list too, 'Alex' is after my Z4 (does he have a type..?)

07441 916029

I’ve had an ‘Alan’ messaging me from this number too. PH classifieds are becoming pretty much impossible to use now with all the scam activity.

[phumy]

Ben Lowden said:

Thanks for the continued reports here. We've sent a warning email out to all private sellers to make them aware.

Thats all well and good but it doesnt stop the scammers sending bogus emails, FFS I have just re-advertised my car last night and today i have had 10 scammers all asking me to supply them with a certain VIN or Registartion report. Pistonheads is now the worst for this and is such a pain. I dont get this scam on Autotrader, why cant you stop this st?

[MuscleSedan]

Today I had a request for a vehicle history report from www.wheelshistory.com. Pretty suspect. Not from a Pistonheads ad I must stress.

These seem to be doing the rounds at the moment.

[Ben Lowden]

phumy said:

Thats all well and good but it doesnt stop the scammers sending bogus emails, FFS I have just re-advertised my car last night and today i have had 10 scammers all asking me to supply them with a certain VIN or Registartion report. Pistonheads is now the worst for this and is such a pain. I dont get this scam on Autotrader, why cant you stop this st?

We are taking steps to try and reduce it but as the enquiries start out as seemingly genuine, they're very difficult to prevent. There are things we're working on in the background but for obvious reasons we won't share them in the public domain. We are as frustrated as you are with this, and we'll do everything we can to try and stop it from continuing.

[Pacman1972]

I had three of these within 30 mins of my ad going live. Same for the previous three times. It is getting very tedious now.

Mine was trying to direct me to theautocheckup

[phumy]

Ive ad Alan (07441916029) after my RS4 this afternoon, the advert for the car was re-newed only last early evening and within about an hour i had about 10 enquiries by email, all scammers. Alan messaged me on my phone today, almost convincing, however i was very wary and low and behold within an hour and about 6 messages he droped the "get me a VIN report at his preffered website. Told him to do one and to fk off, we had already agreed a date and time for a viewing, however that will never now happen.

This really is getting out of hand on Pistonheads, yet odd how when i advertise on Autotrader, theres no scammers contacting me.

[Pacman1972]

Thanks for sharing... I just had Alan too... Turns out it's a premium rate number, so lord only knows what it's cost me to exchange messages with this chump... Watch out for 07441 numbers.

[Edmundo2]

Just advertised my GT4 and had the "I'm interested in this car, is it still available" email within 5 mins.

Suspect it's a scammer.

Goes by name of Mark llyod.

I think the fact he can't spell his own surname suggests it's not legitimate..

[BALDER5]

This thread I think has just stopped me being scammed. Selling my car on both ebay and FB marketplace and some guy contact3e me offering full asking price if I bought a vehicle history check from quickvehicalreport.com

I reminded him it's a private sale and therefore the buys responsibility and not the seller. He said we would reimburse the money and in even started to complete the form.

But something didn't feel right so I did some searching and found this thread. When i challenged him on why this report vs car vertical and I even offered to buy a car vertical report and send it to him, but got some waffa about how it didn't give him the info he wanted.

That's when I knew it was a scam. If it was genuine worry about the car history they'd take a car vertical check, it's a well renowned company. But that they wanted a very specific unknown company was clearly not right.

Thanks all for reporting this. I'd never heard of this type of scam before.

[Edmundo2]

Hi. Had another person contact me via whatsapp from Netherlands re the car i have for sale.

Can someone what's app via the encrypted phone number on PH advert , ( or can you only call )?

Thanks

[limpsfield]

My MX5 is up for sale. Renewed the ad yesterday and this

Ashton Piperr <[e-mail]>

sends the "is it available" email and can you do a motorfacts uk test

[James2112]

As above, also had a lovely message from [e-mail] pushing theprimecheck scam

Also from :

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail] (what a great email address for a scammer !!)
[e-mail]

Pleased there's so much interest in a turbocharged 3 litre V6 these days

ps. first post, joined to sell the car, but have been a long long time lurker !

[andrewcliffe]

[e-mail] pushing motorfacts.uk
And [e-mail]
And [e-mail]

Edited by andrewcliffe on Sunday 4th August 09:51

Edited by andrewcliffe on Sunday 4th August 15:30

[gmaz]

I've had these scams now, Emails from

[e-mail]

Thomas Conors [e-mail] - wanted me to use theautocheckup .co .uk

biancamortenson68+wjygf87gh@

[e-mail]

[Phantom1216]

I posted my ad on Saturday for my Porsche Boxster. Within hours I had an email from ‘Clom Hared’ (which sounds like an anagram). We agreed he would come and view the car at 4.00pm yesterday but he then emailed again asking me to get a condition report . I said that was his responsibility, I’m not a trader. He even offered to pay for it but couldn’t do it online himself but would give me the cash. Yesterday evening I had a text from ‘Alan’ - 07441 916535. Same story - offered the full asking price. I wasn’t drawn - no one does this without looking at the car. He then asked for a condition report from ‘vehicle assurance.co.uk’. Again I told him this was his responsibility. Heard nothing from either since.
If Auto Trader doesn’t end up with this type of contact that will be my next port of call.

[itcaptainslow]

From experience you get far less of it on Autotrader. Ended up pulling my ad on Pistonheads because the scam messages outnumbered anything worthy.