Dodgy buyer or not?

[Burrito]

Just had the below email in response my classifieds ad and I can't decide if this is dodgy or not.

The eBay account exists although I can't see the car purchase on there and it doesn't really add any legitimacy. But then, if he's willing to buy cash, what's the scam?



Email: [e-mail]

Name: benjamin

Phone:

Message:
" hi, I am looking for a m3. Living in France I can only make the trip the day ofpurchase, I pay cash in and naturally landed at the airport. MOT and V5 available? HPI clear?do you have service manual was updated? The RHD is not a problem for me. I am very serious as you can see from my feedback on ebay(benji31100), I already buy a vehicle york, a clio 172 and a megane cc to bristol I still have today.
I await news from you, ben "

[marshalla]

No idea - his email address doesn't crop up very often, but there is thread where he was going to buy a Clio 172 in 2010 : http://www.cliosport.net/forum/showthread.php?5392...

Maybe you can contact that seller and see what happened ?

[Burrito]

God knows how you found that! Google didn't return anything when I searched (just tried again and it's already spiders PH and shows this thread but nothing more).

Looks like that seller's not posted for a couple of years but I'll try a PM.

That the seller's still using the same email address is reassuring.

Cheers

PS Hoping to sell it locally to a guy that seems really interested, but got to keep my options open.

[nottyash]

Don't trust the ebay account. I have just had 2 offers on my car, good offers written in capitals, asking me to send my email ad limited access to ebay. Both written word for word the same. Accounts both posative feedback and still in use. Don't risk it.. I send back a comment telling them to FO.

[SMcP114]

As it stands it's hard enough to sell a car, so two seconds to reply to him isn't the end of the world.

Only an idiot can get scammed when selling a car, realistically.

If it helps I've sold plenty of cars to overseas buyers under similar circumstances and would prefer that than local timewasters asking what my best price is.

[ging84]

Burrito said:

But then, if he's willing to buy cash, what's the scam?

There is a chance that this is a genuine buyer, but i personally would say that chance is slim
Assuming it is a scam, it may not be to get your money or your car at least not straight away, but rather your personal details.
This first email is like a filter to get rid of those least likely to fall for a scam, an email like this raises a red flag with anyone, they think potential scam, 90% of people would just ignore it but a few will give it a go, because they are either more trusting, more naive, more desperate or less risk averse than most people, the sort people a scammer would want to target.
If you reply you will then have a few exchanges, each one testing your susceptibility and revealing a little more about yourself, your car and your personal details.
if you are lucky you'll be seen as someone not worth targeting and just your personal details will be sold on and you'll get more spam than you used to.
If you are unlucky you will be seen as the perfect target and you'll be approached by a new buyer who will not raise any suspicions, but unknown to you, knows exactly what he needs to know about you already to pull off a scam

[anonymous-user]

on the other thread they found his ph account.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

looking on ebay.fr bmw m3 2002/3 are nearly 17k/18k so double our price, so they do look a bargain.

ebay le royale with cheese edition.

http://www.ebay.fr/sch/Autos-/9801/i.html?_fln=1&a...

the quarter pounder edition

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Cars-/9801/i.html?_from=...

Edited by The Spruce goose on Tuesday 26th March 06:36

[Gruber]

The Spruce goose said:

on the other thread rgey found hi ph account.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

looking on ebay.fr bmw m3 2002/3 are nearly 17k/18k so double our price, so they do look a bargain.

Exactly this. Second hand car prices in France look crazy compared to ours. I wouldn't be surprised to hear he's genuine.

Obviously, there could be a scam in there, but if he turns up with the cash it's hard to see what the scam is...

[SuperVM]

I sold a Pulsar GTI-R to some Danes and my FD RX-7 to a chap from Marseille. Both asked loads of questions via email and requested many detailed pictures of the car, but this was understandable given how far they would be travelling. The RX-7 guy didn't offer a deposit, but sent me a copy of his flight tickets once he had booked the journey. In some sense, I actually preferred this, as there was no potential for PayPal scammery.

[billzeebub]

I am always suspicious of anyone I don't know in such circumstances. If there is a nagging doubt in your mind don't ignore it. If in any doubt at all, then it has to be cash. Get the chap to come to your bank when /if he turns up. Once it is paid in to the banks satisfaction, only then would I release the keys.

[obob]

billzeebub said:

I am always suspicious of anyone I don't know in such circumstances. If there is a nagging doubt in your mind don't ignore it. If in any doubt at all, then it has to be cash. Get the chap to come to your bank when /if he turns up. Once it is paid in to the banks satisfaction, only then would I release the keys.

You'd do that with any sale though? How else would you receive payment for a car?

I would guess it isn't a scam, a scammer would say I can't collect I'll Paypal you blah blah. Not ask you genuine questions about the car, if he is coming over to view it, let him - I don't see how it is any different because he is from France.

[Burrito]

ging84 said:

There is a chance that this is a genuine buyer, but i personally would say that chance is slim
Assuming it is a scam, it may not be to get your money or your car at least not straight away, but rather your personal details.
This first email is like a filter to get rid of those least likely to fall for a scam, an email like this raises a red flag with anyone, they think potential scam, 90% of people would just ignore it but a few will give it a go, because they are either more trusting, more naive, more desperate or less risk averse than most people, the sort people a scammer would want to target.
If you reply you will then have a few exchanges, each one testing your susceptibility and revealing a little more about yourself, your car and your personal details.
if you are lucky you'll be seen as someone not worth targeting and just your personal details will be sold on and you'll get more spam than you used to.
If you are unlucky you will be seen as the perfect target and you'll be approached by a new buyer who will not raise any suspicions, but unknown to you, knows exactly what he needs to know about you already to pull off a scam

You're even more paranoid than me!

I've replied to his email but did explain that given the unusual circumstances any sale would need to be cash. No reply as yet.

On the plus side, the local chap seems really interested.

[stealthgrow]

In this day an age its normal for people to be suspicious of this sort of thing but if the guy is willing to come and pay cash then i would be more than happy as long as all the cash is there in my hands we have a deal.

[steveo3002]

ask him to come at a time when you can both visit the bank to pay in the cash and have it checked

[derin100]

Gruber said:

Exactly this. Second hand car prices in France look crazy compared to ours. I wouldn't be surprised to hear he's genuine.

Obviously, there could be a scam in there, but if he turns up with the cash it's hard to see what the scam is...

I agree! Second-hand car prices (especially for things like BMWs) are way, way higher in France. We have a place over there and in the end we decided to buy our second-hand car here and just take it and register it there. It was miles cheaper!

Clearly scams are a genuine and constant cause for concern and there's some really good advice already given. I would say though that in my experience not all enquiries from abroad turn out to be scams by any means. Also, bear in mind that actually there are many places in the world where people seem to have far more money and willingness to pay decent money for second-hand cars than here in the U.K now. Examples I could cite that upon intial enquiry one might have instantly consigned to your recycle bin are:

1) Late last year I sold a Mercedes W201 190E 2.6 to someone in Hong Kong. With the wealth of information on the internet I was able to search and establish the credentials of the prospective buyer and satisfy myself that he was who he claimed to be. By the next day he'd already paid by bank transfer and from there on in all went smoothly and the car is now safely on the streets of H.K.

2) A good few years ago now I had an enquiry from Nigeria (!)for an 8-Series that I had for sale. Reflex reaction might have been to send that one to the recycle bin with all speed!? But no...turned out the guy was genuine. A Scottish chap who worked there in the oil industry, flew 12,000 miles round trip to buy it, turned up with the cash, no messing around and drove it off to his home in Aberdeen!

I've also had a vast number of scam enquiries in the past though as well. Often these scammers use a fictitious alias. Often a bit of a 'weird' sounding name. Often when you look them up on Google you'll find them there and info on other people they've tried to scam.

Granted it's difficult to tell and one does have to be wary but I wouldn't dismiss that enquiry from France completely out of hand.

[Mark1010]

Burrito, my wife is advertising a car and has had the same stock e-mail from Benjamin. What was your experience, did he turn out to be genuine?

[Kinky]

[Burrito]

Hi Mark, he didn't reply to my email. That said, it was quite a negative message so he may have been put off.

I the end I sold it to a local BMW mechanic, a nice guy who was intending to keep it as a weekend car.

My Email said:

Hi Ben

Thanks for the email. Because of the slightly unusual circumstances, I would ask that if you wanted to buy my car, you would have to pay in cash. Not cheque, PayPal or bankers draft.

The car has an MOT until October 2013 and is HPI clear - I have copies of my own and the previous seller's HPI checks.

I am in possession of the V5, which is in my name.

Please note that I am in Cornwall in the south west of the UK which you may find difficult to travel to from France. However, there are ferries from Roscoff to Plymouth, which is about 1 hour away by train. There are also a number of flights into Newquay or Exeter airport.

If you would like any more information, please ask.

Kind regards

[The Moose]

Don't burn any bridges. Just don't ask for bank transfer/PayPal and say payment is in cash in sterling during banking hours when you can pay the cash into your account with him present before you hand over the car and docs. Simple

ETA: sounds like job jobbed

[gazchap]

I had a guy from Berlin buy my old E38 from me, he made the trip over to pick the car up and got here at about 2am - had a brief look over the car (my eBay listing was pretty comprehensive), paid in cash (which due to the time of day I couldn't get checked, but I made sure to get a photo of him and a copy of his ID, and it turned out to be all genuine anyway) and drove away, with me leading him to a petrol station to fill it up before the long drive home.

My understanding is simply that cars over there go for stupid money, so they're much cheaper to buy here - even with travel costs - and then import back into their home country.

Unless they start mentioning Western Union, or "shipping agents", or paying you more money than the selling price and you then refund the difference, I'd give them the time of day personally.