Discussion
I responded to an ad on Gumtree a few weeks ago for a Honda S2000 which was exceptionally cheap... the ad was then promptly removed and I forgot about it. Last week the seller got back to me saying that my message had gone to his spam folder etc etc.
"Hi,
You emailed about my 2004 honda s2000 on gumtree few days ago, I couldn't reply sooner because your email arrived in my junk folder. The car it's up for sale at £3750 now and I believe it's a good price for a car with 95,000 miles and no accidents.
I have uploaded some pics below so, let me know if you're still looking"
The original price was £4900 so taking more than £1000 off for no reason lit the fires of suspicion. I typed his email address (Arthur.Aarts@yahoo.com) into google and got a hit on an MG-Rover forum discussing a similar sounding advert from the same guy, only this one had gone a step further with the 'seller' having explained that he was a dutch soldier with the 'Royal Defence Forces' stationed in Northern Ireland and due to head to Afghanistan in 15 days...
I thought I'd try and pull the seller in a bit so suggested that the price was so good I'd be willing to put down a deposit to secure it, and sure enough I got the 'Royal Defence Forces' message. I was tempted to continue pretending I was interested but decided it was more fun to randomly abuse him. so I sent him this...
"The Royal Defence Forces do not exist. How dumb do you think I am.
Why don't you go and ---- your ------- you thieving little -----.
Get a real job.
You're lucky I only have your email address because if I knew where you were you'd would be in ------- hospital for trying to scam me."
amazingly, he actually replied to me. After calling me a "mother -------- english little cook b
d" he went on to say...
"man...believe me ...i'm a winner in all this st because I make thousands / month while you wake up at seven and ..for only 1000-2000 pounds/month"
I'm amazed he has the bare-faced cheek to admit to it like that. But I think the best way to get back at him is to make sure everyone is aware of his scam. Please tell anyone you know who may be buying a car to watch out for people like this.
If a car looks too cheap to be true, it probably is.
"Hi,
You emailed about my 2004 honda s2000 on gumtree few days ago, I couldn't reply sooner because your email arrived in my junk folder. The car it's up for sale at £3750 now and I believe it's a good price for a car with 95,000 miles and no accidents.
I have uploaded some pics below so, let me know if you're still looking"
The original price was £4900 so taking more than £1000 off for no reason lit the fires of suspicion. I typed his email address (Arthur.Aarts@yahoo.com) into google and got a hit on an MG-Rover forum discussing a similar sounding advert from the same guy, only this one had gone a step further with the 'seller' having explained that he was a dutch soldier with the 'Royal Defence Forces' stationed in Northern Ireland and due to head to Afghanistan in 15 days...
I thought I'd try and pull the seller in a bit so suggested that the price was so good I'd be willing to put down a deposit to secure it, and sure enough I got the 'Royal Defence Forces' message. I was tempted to continue pretending I was interested but decided it was more fun to randomly abuse him. so I sent him this...
"The Royal Defence Forces do not exist. How dumb do you think I am.
Why don't you go and ---- your ------- you thieving little -----.
Get a real job.
You're lucky I only have your email address because if I knew where you were you'd would be in ------- hospital for trying to scam me."
amazingly, he actually replied to me. After calling me a "mother -------- english little cook b
d" he went on to say..."man...believe me ...i'm a winner in all this s
t because I make thousands / month while you wake up at seven and ..for only 1000-2000 pounds/month"I'm amazed he has the bare-faced cheek to admit to it like that. But I think the best way to get back at him is to make sure everyone is aware of his scam. Please tell anyone you know who may be buying a car to watch out for people like this.
If a car looks too cheap to be true, it probably is.
Even 1999 models don't go that cheap so one 5 years newer certainly won't. Even with that mileage it would be more than double that price (probably more) so alarm bells would have been ringing well before (when it was at £4,900) unless there were clear reasons why (cat d/c, smashed panels, major mechanical problems etc.)
I welcome any grief he wants to send me as it'll give him less time to rip other people off. I suppose he could try and crack my gmail account password but it's quite a secure one so he'd need a pretty serious effort to do so. I didn't use my work email fortunately.
I did use my full name in some of the early replies but I have the second most common surname and eleventh most common first name in the english-speaking world, so I'm not worried.
What can you really do with someone's email address and name anyway? apply for a loan?
I did use my full name in some of the early replies but I have the second most common surname and eleventh most common first name in the english-speaking world, so I'm not worried.
What can you really do with someone's email address and name anyway? apply for a loan?
I fell for the scam with arthur.aarts he was selling a really low price car on gum tree and I thought it might be sold soon so I responded urgently. I was told to pay into a company called british net-pay – http://www.british-netpay.com/ and they hold the money till you get a chance to inspect the car and if u agree to buy it transfers to the seller if not it comes back to you. I paid into british net pay account as stated on their website, gumtree send me a reccomended email for this company as well. After paying I got an email from british net pay that the account I had transfered into had reached its fund limit so could I cancel the transaction and transfer to different account. Since the money had left my account there was no way I could cancel it or get it back i told them to send it back to me but since then they have been unresponsive. I am really worried what should I do please help me.
Mahwish said:
I fell for the scam with arthur.aarts he was selling a really low price car on gum tree and I thought it might be sold soon so I responded urgently. I was told to pay into a company called british net-pay – http://www.british-netpay.com/ and they hold the money till you get a chance to inspect the car and if u agree to buy it transfers to the seller if not it comes back to you. I paid into british net pay account as stated on their website, gumtree send me a reccomended email for this company as well. After paying I got an email from british net pay that the account I had transfered into had reached its fund limit so could I cancel the transaction and transfer to different account. Since the money had left my account there was no way I could cancel it or get it back i told them to send it back to me but since then they have been unresponsive. I am really worried what should I do please help me.
I don't mean to be funny but are you being serious? You honestly sent money on a dodgy website????Blimey, sorry to hear that mate, how much did you lose and when?
I don't think there's a great deal you can do. Did you get a phone number before you sent the money?
It might be worth speaking to the police and the email supplier who his address was with, as they will have IP address logs for him, which might at least help point out a location.
It might also be worth looking through Gumtree in the future to see if any other ads that look similar have been placed. Chances are it is the same guy or group of guys. Then set up an email account that he/they won't recognise and pretend you're interested. See what info you can get from them on their location etc.
If you can get this far then I would recommend passing those details on to the police, though I can't guarantee they'll care, being too busy as they are, hassling people for exceeding the speed limit by 8 mph. Personally, if I could find out the location of the person (even if it were in Nigeria), I would take Mr baseball bat and pay them a visit.
I have found 3 more scams on Gumtree recently and have enjoyed wasting their time and eventually hitting them with a barrage of inexcuseable abuse just as they think i'm about to pay. Not very mature, but immensely satisfying
I don't think there's a great deal you can do. Did you get a phone number before you sent the money?
It might be worth speaking to the police and the email supplier who his address was with, as they will have IP address logs for him, which might at least help point out a location.
It might also be worth looking through Gumtree in the future to see if any other ads that look similar have been placed. Chances are it is the same guy or group of guys. Then set up an email account that he/they won't recognise and pretend you're interested. See what info you can get from them on their location etc.
If you can get this far then I would recommend passing those details on to the police, though I can't guarantee they'll care, being too busy as they are, hassling people for exceeding the speed limit by 8 mph. Personally, if I could find out the location of the person (even if it were in Nigeria), I would take Mr baseball bat and pay them a visit.
I have found 3 more scams on Gumtree recently and have enjoyed wasting their time and eventually hitting them with a barrage of inexcuseable abuse just as they think i'm about to pay. Not very mature, but immensely satisfying
Mahwish said:
I fell for the scam with arthur.aarts he was selling a really low price car on gum tree and I thought it might be sold soon so I responded urgently. I was told to pay into a company called british net-pay – http://www.british-netpay.com/ and they hold the money till you get a chance to inspect the car and if u agree to buy it transfers to the seller if not it comes back to you. I paid into british net pay account as stated on their website, gumtree send me a reccomended email for this company as well. After paying I got an email from british net pay that the account I had transfered into had reached its fund limit so could I cancel the transaction and transfer to different account. Since the money had left my account there was no way I could cancel it or get it back i told them to send it back to me but since then they have been unresponsive. I am really worried what should I do please help me.
That site is a phishing scam, i'd suggest getting intouch with your bankGassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff