So many scam listings on ebay

[tommytaylor]

I'm looking for a new van and I cant believe the amount of obviously fake adverts that pop up in the search, here is a listing for Transit Customs and probably half the listings are phoney.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/b/Ford-Transit-Custom-Comme...

Most of the sellers are brand new accounts with zero feedback and the prices are just too good to be true, Here is one "seller" that has quite a few for sale yet every picture is took in a different part of the country. One how can anyone fall for this and two how are ebay allowing such obvious scams to persist. with this amount of scams I would never use ebay to buy anything of value.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?item=19591089641...

[Seventyseven7]

What is the scam exactly?

[McMoose]

Unless any fraudulent activity is proven to have taken place what are you expecting Ebay to do?

[Grumps.]

tommytaylor said:

I'm looking for a new van and I cant believe the amount of obviously fake adverts that pop up in the search, here is a listing for Transit Customs and probably half the listings are phoney.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/b/Ford-Transit-Custom-Comme...

Most of the sellers are brand new accounts with zero feedback and the prices are just too good to be true, Here is one "seller" that has quite a few for sale yet every picture is took in a different part of the country. One how can anyone fall for this and two how are ebay allowing such obvious scams to persist. with this amount of scams I would never use ebay to buy anything of value.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?item=19591089641...

Those Transits listed are from sellers with well over 100 feedbacks, however, anyone with half a brain wouldn't part with any money until it was seen in the flesh, and if they did, they deserve it.

[OldSkoolRS]

I looked through the lower eBay link and there is a C Class that caught my attention. 17 plate and under £10k which comes under 'too cheap to be true' territory IMHO. I ran the reg through Cazoo and (surprisingly) it isn't showing up as a write off. They value it at over £13k too as I guessed at 'partial' service history, though perhaps that was generous. If the dealer really did have the car might as well sell it to Cazoo or WBAC for £3-4k more, but like the OP I'm sure there's a scam in there somewhere.

Not too far away from me as well, though I suspect turning up in person might be risky, or more likely the car isn't actually there. I guess the whole scam is to lure people to buy remotely, then take them outside of eBay for payment somehow. I saw another thread where the scam is to have to pay a shipper to send the car and of course it never arrives.

The daft thing is that it's the too low price that makes it stand out. If it were closer to the Cazoo valuation then it might just seem a 'good deal'. Eventually they will suss that out too and price them closer to genuine sales making it harder to spot (until they won't let you visit the site I suppose/delivery only option).

[dundarach]

That address in Slough have a few different car trader accounts.

I'm assuming either the address is fake or HMRC are lazy idiots.

However as others have said, not quite sure what the scam is, however if you're daft enough to buy a car (from a dealer) in a back street / supermarket car park then you probably shouldn't really be behind the wheel.

Someone go contact them for a test drive...

[tommytaylor]

Grumps. said:

tommytaylor said:

I'm looking for a new van and I cant believe the amount of obviously fake adverts that pop up in the search, here is a listing for Transit Customs and probably half the listings are phoney.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/b/Ford-Transit-Custom-Comme...

Most of the sellers are brand new accounts with zero feedback and the prices are just too good to be true, Here is one "seller" that has quite a few for sale yet every picture is took in a different part of the country. One how can anyone fall for this and two how are ebay allowing such obvious scams to persist. with this amount of scams I would never use ebay to buy anything of value.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?item=19591089641...

Those Transits listed are from sellers with well over 100 feedbacks, however, anyone with half a brain wouldn't part with any money until it was seen in the flesh, and if they did, they deserve it.

That trader I linked to -heathrowc0- 0 feedback and has 96 vehicles for sale, every single vehicle pictured has a different background and they are all very cheap, apart from the sheds that are well overpriced. There are a few zero feedback traders that have recently joined ebay in the first listing I posted. Its obviously a scam of some sort. Its the same story for other make vans as well.

[dundarach]

I tend to loiter in the classic car section, thank god they've mostly given up (it seems) on there.

Every other advert was for a £3.5k SD1/P6 (Rover)

[tommytaylor]

A few more all from the first page I linked to.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/artfred_96?_trksid=p204...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/carworld1-37?_trksid=p2...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?item=14520042949...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?item=22569663582...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?item=23509350182...

all scammers in my opinion. I might be wrong but with thew price of vans sky high at the minute, why sell a low mileage mint van for half of what its worth.

[Seventyseven7]

Seventyseven7 said:

What is the scam exactly?

Anyone?

[blue_haddock]

Seventyseven7 said:

Seventyseven7 said:

What is the scam exactly?

Anyone?

Its probably that you are pressured to place a deposit on the vehicle to hold it and then they disappear.

Rinse a load of people then get a new burner phone/email/ebay account and start again.

[A500leroy]

FB market place is worse, the same car advertised in London, Birmingham, Liverpool.

[anonymous-user]

The scam is they hack into someone's account with feedback. They then steal photos from other adverts and list a load of Motor Homes, Vans or SUVs and list them for between a 1/3rd and 1/2 of what they are actually worth.

If you email them they won't be able to do a viewing as they are working away, but if you send them the money they will arrange delivery.

My parents sent me loads of links to motorhomes, I could tell they were scams just by the price. I reported loads of them but eBay are in no hurry to take them down.

Look at the history, the account will have been used to buy and sell minor items and then suddenly have ten motorhomes for sale.

[JakeS77]

The same scam was on eBay last week with a seller posting loads of Z4s, Porsche, Bentley etc cars for sale at suspiciously low prices. The same cars were usually on autotrader for double. I contacted the seller of one Z4 thru autotrader and he contacted eBay. Who then removed all the fake listings. BUT allowed the seller to keep their account and they've posted more cars for sale now.

[JakeS77]

If you want to see more with screenshots of the fake adverts see this thread on the Z4 forum
https://z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=145908

Edited by JakeS77 on Monday 26th February 09:43