What's the scam

[rsv gone!]

I was looking through Autotrader (like you do!) following one link to another and I happened across Howard Smee who, on the face of it, seem to have some very cheap cars.

The pictures for the cars all say something like 'contact the seller on dodgy looking yahoo address'

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/dealer/12203/stock/use...

What's the angle?

[daemonoid]

They're not all spectacularly cheap. Given that they're all photoed in different places he's a home / roadside car dealer.

Also, check out the satellite view on google maps of his postcode. Nice house with scrap yard down the road. He's probably bought the cars cheap at auction and tarted them up with parts from his scrap yard.

[Steffan]

rsv gone! said:

I was looking through Autotrader (like you do!) following one link to another and I happened across Howard Smee who, on the face of it, seem to have some very cheap cars.

The pictures for the cars all say something like 'contact the seller on dodgy looking yahoo address'

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/dealer/12203/stock/use...

What's the angle?

Not easy to discover without risking doom. Obviously the prices are wrong. Years of experience has taught me, that, if it looks much too cheap on the web, its a scam.

Like you, I await the confirmation from somebody on PH who knows the particular angle on this site. Scammers are getting more and more sophisticated and I will watch with interest. Well spotted.

[Krikkit]

My guess would be Cat. C cars that he's fixed. Definitely something wrong there though!

[tomsugden]

When I clicked on that link earlier, there were 3 pages of cars advertised, and some were spectacularly cheap. 2 of those pages seem to have disappeared now.

[LuS1fer]

I tend to avoid dealers located next to cheap auction houses or accident repair places - there is usually a connection.

[Chrisw666]

The pics look ok to me, but the yahoo email will not belong to the dealer, and the prices on AT will be been lowered by a hacker, they use dealer accounts to gain confidence but if you mail the yahoo address you'll get someone from Nigeria not from Howard Smee.

[TonyRPH]

I've seen this happen before on Autotrader.

I'm guessing this particular dealer's "site" was hacked and dodgy cars place there for sale, alongside his genuine vehicles.

The hackers used to post pictures of cars with the email address embedded in the picture - this has been going on for a long time, and I suspect the Autotrader site has a weakness somewhere - or users are simply not using secure passwords.


ETA: As per the post from Chris above.

[danyeates]

Am I missing something, doesn't appear to be a scam to me. Prices don't seem too cheap and I can't see any yahoo addresses.

[TonyRPH]

danyeates said:

Am I missing something, doesn't appear to be a scam to me. Prices don't seem too cheap and I can't see any yahoo addresses.

I'm guessing that since the OP posted this, the pictures have been removed by Autotrader.

[danyeates]

TonyRPH said:

danyeates said:

Am I missing something, doesn't appear to be a scam to me. Prices don't seem too cheap and I can't see any yahoo addresses.

I'm guessing that since the OP posted this, the pictures have been removed by Autotrader.

Yep, just realised that once I'd read the above.

Tempted by a 130i M Sport now though!