Buying Scam on Autotrader

[sash87]

Hey People,

I'm well aware of all the 'send me money via western union and I'll arrange shipping of my car conveniently held abroad and sold cheap to you' scam that you see when buying cars but until this have never heard of any when selling cars.

Any idea how this would work? Unless a stolen/dodgy card is used to pay via Paypal?

Transcript below:

Customer Details:
NAME: MR John Tatham
TELEPHONE:
EMAIL: [e-mail]

Vehicle Details:
MAKE: BMW
MODEL: 3 SERIES
PRICE: £3800

Message:
Hello mate, do you still have this vehicle for sale?

Me:
Hi,

Yes it's still for sale. The car is located in Ashford if you'd like
to view it.

As the advert says, everything is in good condition throughout and the
car has no faults of any kind.

I took delivery of my new car last night so the price has dropped to
£3700 for a faster sale.

Thanks

Buyer:
Thanks for your response..I'm quite satisfied with the condition and
price,and I need you to understand that i am willing and ready to
purchase it right away, end the advert, consider me as your favorite
buyer.I will be paying the PayPal charges from my account and will be
paying directly into your PayPal account without any delay, and I hope
you have a paypal account. If you have one already, just send me the
address to send it to, which is the email address you use for it or
you can send me a paypal money request, so once i receive the details
i will go ahead with the payment through PayPal and then I will
contact my shipping company after you get the payment. I will need
your home address for it to be Picked Up by the Shipping Company..

Me:
This is a con isn't it. No one buys a car without seeing it.

My numbers on the listing if you want to come and see it.

Buyer:
Hello thanks for your email, I really understand you but I'm presently
on sea because I'm marine officer and always busy. I will send
shipping company to your home and they will check everything on my
behalf. So kindly send me your paypal email and full name so that I
can proceed with the payment and get back to me with your home address
so that I can forward it to the shipper.

[mondeoman]

Scam

[Deva Link]

mondeoman said:

Scam

He knows that - the question is, how does it work?

[surveyor]

He'll pay you too much and ask you to refund the overpayment.

His payment will be recalled by the bank.

[shandyboy]

Smells scammier than a Nigerian 419 email.

I think the way these things pan out is you supply your paypal address, they pay in the money, you hand over the car (never to see it again).

Shortly afterwards the unfortunate who's had their paypal account hacked notices the large amount of money missing from their account and notifies paypal, who refund them (from your account).

You are minus 1 car, and 1 paypal payment.

[pd2]

Yeah, screams scam. "Gimmie your paypal details!! Gimmie you paypal details!!"

In theory, could the buyer just not say, "I didn't buy the car! I didn't pick a car up....etc...." and claw the money back?

[All that jazz]

shandyboy said:

Smells scammier than a Nigerian 419 email.

I think the way these things pan out is you supply your paypal address, they pay in the money, you hand over the car (never to see it again).

Shortly afterwards the unfortunate who's had their paypal account hacked notices the large amount of money missing from their account and notifies paypal, who refund them (from your account).

You are minus 1 car, and 1 paypal payment.

This ^.

Pretty much anything involving paypal & cars = scam or recipe for disaster, either because it's not their paypal account to begin with or if it is, they conveniently find something wrong with the car, complain to Paypal and 99% of the time will take the buyers version and refund the money to them so you end up with no money and no car.

Simple rule to stick to when buying/selling motors is deal in either cash or direct bank transfers only. If anyone asks to pay by other methods tell them to do one. If they want the car that badly they'll get the cash or do the BACS/CHAPS.

[Mr2Mike]

Stolen PayPal account probably.

Ask him for details of the shipping company as you'd like to discuss things with them.

[Face for Radio]

Or their Paypal address is registered to a bank account that has £0 in it. They pay and when Paypal try and retrieve the money from the account and get denied, the money gets sucked back out of your account.

[sash87]

Yeah that must be it, on that large amount there is no way PayPal would refund a buyer without taking it from a seller.

It's the first time I've seen a scam like that, apart from the "we have a buyer lined up for your car. We just need an upfront fee of £50"

[onesickpuppy]

I strung one of these fkers along once and they sent a fake paypal notification. It looked quite convincing actually. I think this one might be a variation on that theme as they are not banking on you sending something by post fairly quickly which they were in my case.

[LuS1fer]

He can't afford your car. He is merely a marine officer who failed his exams to become an oceanographer.

The answer to these things is to tell them to get his shipping agent to bring the cash.

[blueheron]

They scam works by them sending you a fake email "from paypal" claiming the payment has cleared (of course, it hasn't).

You can often tell these scams a mile off, by the language/spelling/grammar used. And the story is always the same, someone overseas wants to buy a car without inspecting it.

Sometimes they'll offer to overpay, so you can "pay" the shipping company. Which is usually linked to the scammer.

[Jagmanv12]

sash87 said:

Yeah that must be it, on that large amount there is no way PayPal would refund a buyer without taking it from a seller.

Even on small amounts Paypal always take the money from the seller before refunding a buyer.

Another scam from buyers is to pay by Paypal and then collect the item. The buyer then puts in a claim that they have not received it. Paypal asks the seller for proof of posting/recorded delivery number which obviously the seller doesn't have, so Paypal refund the buyer.

[Bisonhead]

I had at least a dozen of these when selling my e39 recently. In the end I just replied to the initial email by asking what shipping company they were using.

Was so annoying at first but once you spot the purpose of the email you can relax and send a witty reply to amuse yourself!

[Fastdruid]

Also worth nothing that while I'm not 100% on cars certainly with other goods you should never allow someone to pay via paypal and then collect as without proof of posting there is no proof (as far as paypal is concerned) that the item was transferred. So any "item not received" case is very likely to find in favour of the 'buyer'.

[LuS1fer]

People at sea = pirates. Aaarrr!

[ajb85]

I too have had tonnes of these with the cars I sell. I went along with the latest 'buyer' and got him all excited, and then very frustrated. We to'd and fro'd about 6 emails, I agreed to send him the relevant details before finally emailing him some 'good news'. I told him that there was no longer any need to arrange Paypal payment and shipping, as I fancied a bit of a road trip and would in fact gladly deliver the car to the oil rig he was working on, if he could supply me the address of his rig 'for my TomTom'. Within seconds I got an email back informing me that this wasn't possible for various reasons, I then suggested that driving my car into the sea was a more viable option than letting him scam it off me.

[sash87]

ajb85 said:

I then suggested that driving my car into the sea was a more viable option than letting him scam it off me.

Haha!

[Mr-B]

Tell him you don't have a paypal account but payment by Western Union will be fine, don't think you will hear from him again.