buying a car, is this a scam?
Question by jose bernardo: buying a car, is this a scam?
I saw this ad at kijiji selling a 2005 Chrysler 300 series sedan for only 00 and then I emailed the seller and this was his first reply:
My name is ***** and I’m glad to see your interest in purchasing my car. What I can tell you in a few words is that I am an individual seller, I am not a dealer and this is my first type of action on internet. I have a clear title and it is on my name. My 2005 Chrysler 300-Series Sedan it is still available and the price is 3,000.00 $ USA not negotiable. You should know that it has never been wrecked or damaged, the car is in excellent condition with only 51,456 kilometers. Non-smoker.The inside is clean, like new. Runs great, very smooth, meticulously maintained and it always has been garaged. All the manuals, and the original documentation comes along with the car.It has a clear title ready to be signed and notarized on your name. I sell it at this price because I cannot enjoy it due to my job (I work on a cruise ship as a casino dealer). All documents, including owner’s manual, clear title and a bill of sale on your name will be provided along with the car. I will take in consideration only those buyers who are really interested in buying the car, to be sure that I don’t waste my time with endless discussions. This way, I shall be assured of the serious intentions.So if you are interested please e-mail me back for more details about the transaction.Here you can find more pictures with the car: http://2005chrysler300c.myphotoalbum.com/slideshow.php?set_albumName=album01
and I replied to his message and then he sent me his second email :
Thank you for your interest in buying my car but let’s clarify some things first of all. I would have preferred to make this face to face but for the time being I am gone with my work in Florida, USA ( as I told you I work as a casino dealer on a cruise ship) and the car it is already on shipping co. possession in Montréal, QC, Canada. It is crated in a truck along with all documents waiting for a destination but no problem because you can see, test drive and inspect the car before before committing to purchase. I have a contract with eBay so this deal must go through them. According with eBay you have 10 days from the time you receive the car to inspect it and decide if you want to keep it or not.
Let me explain how this works and hopefully you agree this terms:
1. First of all I will need the following details from you:
- Full Name-(Required by eBay)
- Full Shipping Address and your phone number – required by the Shipping company They will call you with delivery/pickup instructions 1 day ahead so you communicate what time schedule works best for your to receive the car.
2. After I will receive the details from you, I will forward them to eBay.
3. After they will process your info, they will send us both invoices. The invoice will send you the details on how to make a refundable payment.
4. eBay will contact me and I will ship the car to you. After you receive the car you will have 10 days to test, verify and do whatever you want with the car. If you will buy it, then I will receive the payment details from eBay so that I can pick up the money.
5. If you will decide that you will not buy the car, eBay will refund the money and I will have the shipping company come pick up my car. By the way, the shipping is free of charge for you.
If you wish to make the transaction, please send me the necessary info so that we can proceed. Waiting for your email.
Now my question is this a scam? Btw I emailed him if we can discuss purchasing his car personally but he still has no reply. Hope you can answer my question, thanks!
thanks guys, I know that something is fishy with this seller, but he has facebook LOL
Best answer:
Answer by The coolest guy you will ever know
100% scam.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
YES! this is a scam! I have had similar experiences on craigslist. I was looking for a boat, and a really hard to beat deal was on the site, so I emailed him. Whenever the person can’t meet you in person, or wants you to wire money to them it’s a scam.
Absolutely, positively YES!!!!
Lose his e-mail, block it, and forget about it.
100% scam.
There is no car,
There are stolen pictures of someone else’s car,
There is only a scammer trying to steal your hard-earned money.
The next email will be from another of the scammer’s fake names and free email addresses, pretending to be the “Shipper” and will demand you pay, in cash, and only by Western Union or moneygram.
Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.
Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his ‘potential sucker’ list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell you email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.
You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.
Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don’t bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn’t worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.
As you know, whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.
Yes, this scam has been going on for years. If you scan craigslist you will see dozens of vehicles listed in the under $3000 range. It really is common sense by the way. You see a 2003 Range Rover with 56k miles on it, and its for sale at 2300 dollars. Do you REALLY think this is a deal? If I was desperate for money and had to sell my beloved Range Rover, would I take it to the dealer who would offer me 15-20k all day long, and be done with it, OR would I go with putting it on Craigslist for $3000, take hundreds of calls from people, and then offer to include shipping it to them? PLEASE, use your common sense. Not only that, paying for it through ebay does not protect you, its only a service, and not ebays responsibility. Its a HUGE scam. This guy is a little more creative, they usually claim to be in the military and shipping overseas next week, but the military will ship the car to you free. Yeah, right.
SCAM, Do everything you can to string this guy along, for as long as you can, and find ways to make him waste time and HIS money. the more of his time you waste, the less people he has time to scam.
Scam
Moving or relocating claim is usually to evade the face to face/
Old dirty scam
Facebook does not require paper identification(and even this can be faked)
As Cantore said,the relocation/moving is a red flag(the sammer has not moved,they are where they are in the first place). The money gram/western union is another.Those classifieds are usually labled as for “local transactions”,that is face to face,no shipping,no wiring. You can become good at spotting ads by reading this article here,i recommend it:
http://www.nortad.com/SellBuySafety.php