Scam ?

[Ironwood]

I have a vehicle advertised for sale on an online site, I received a message from a guy the other day inquiring about it.
I think I have heard of a similar scenario, where people have been scammed.
This is a screenshot of his email. What do you think ?
Screen Shot 2022-02-07 at 9.38.51 am.png

[Bernmc]

Scam. Stay away from anyone setting up to be uncontactable and buying expensive things unseen. They'll reverse the paypal payment as soon as the car's out of site (after asking you to accept the payment as a 'gift' so that none of the paypal (tenuous at best) protections apply.

[Ironwood]

Thanks Bern. My suspicions are confirmed

[taz01]

I agree it looks suspicious. When selling mine i only accepted a bankers cheque or direct deposit.

[barri]

Anybody asks you for your account information like he did then run away

[Mobyturns]

scam, I had the same one when I advertised on a vehicle sales website.

[woodPixel]

Scam.

6 months ago I bought a Nissan Pulsar for Loving Son to learn to drive. It is mint despite its age.

He's shown zero interest, so I put it on Gumtree mid January.


I absolutely kid you NOT - I had two scam calls within FIVE MINUTES and a barrage of emails, SMS and internal messages thereafter.


It was horrendous. It was so blatant, so obvious and so poorly done I'm incredulous it even works. Their attempts at some primitive con were so pitiful I almost felt sorry for them.

Gumtree has failed in its ability to deal effectively with these people. It isn't hard. There are a dozen methods to ensure both identity, payment and performance.


I withdrew the car after two days as I was sick of the spam calls. They took weeks to trail off.

DO NOT list your phone number on Gumtree.... what a mistake that was!

[hurcorh]

Hopefully it's a scam but I work remotely and it is a pain in the ass trying to buy things like cars and larger items on the used market when away at work so if it's real, I feel for the guy, i can relate. How it is written doesn't seem too legitimate, though.

[Bushmiller]

Brad

It is a variation of an old scam scheme introducing Paypal to imply some form of legitimacy. See this thread I posted over 10 years ago now.

Regards
Paul

[Mobyturns]

Hopefully it's a scam but I work remotely and it is a pain in the ass trying to buy things like cars and larger items on the used market when away at work so if it's real, I feel for the guy, i can relate. How it is written doesn't seem too legitimate, though.

My experience after placing an advert for our old Subaru was almost a carbon copy of Woodpixel's. I thought I was pretty aware of most scams but some of the approaches even amazed me. They were numerous and persistent. Perhaps the odd one is a genuine "remote worker" - I was one myself (surveyor) and had no access to any "comms" for well over a decade & well before internet.

The most novel approach was a message from a representative of a "charity" supposedly in Western NSW, who asked if I would donate the vehicle to them and pay all transport, rego transfer costs etc as well. When I asked for the charities details so I could authenticate their approach that online conversation ended.

One thing I do applaud is Twiggy Forest taking on Meta in court about them not doing enough to end the "crypto scams" using his image and to stop them altogether.

[Bernmc]

These Scam emails are actually deliberately sub-par. The poor English etc are there for a reason. Scammers have learned that if they’re too convincing, they attract a lot of intelligent/switched on people who will eventually pick their con, and back out. Then the scammer has wasted a whole lot of time. And even in the work of the con, Time is Money.
They filter a lot of wasted effort by deliberately sending flawed messages. That way, anyone who responds is probably at least gullible/low on smarts enough for them to groom and spend some time on and have a reasonable chance of success.

Of course there are also very sophisticated and convincing scams about that are designed to catch a different subset of the population. But these just want quick and easy marks.

[jack620]

So the prospective buyer asked for a BSB and account number and said his agent would collect the car after the funds had been cleared into Ironwood's account. What's to stop Ironwood transferring the money out of his account before the car is collected?

[Bernmc]

So the prospective buyer asked for a BSB and account number and said his agent would collect the car after the funds had been cleared into Ironwood's account. What's to stop Ironwood transferring the money out of his account before the car is collected?

Because the money will never hit Ironwood's account. They either send a fake bank letter saying the money is there but can't be released until a certain sum is paid (western union of course), or more usually push things towards doing it through paypal. Then it's either similar fake paypal letters, or the paypal payment is reversed once the car is on the way.

These guys are not dumb. They're better criminals than we'll ever be. They're usually pretty sophisticated international crime organisations, and they've been scamming people for a long time.

Just do a google for 'military car paypal scam', car paypal scam or similar - they're all variations on a theme. Remote miners, oil rig workers, military personnel on duty in Afghanistan etc.

[Mobyturns]

So the prospective buyer asked for a BSB and account number and said his agent would collect the car after the funds had been cleared into Ironwood's account. What's to stop Ironwood transferring the money out of his account before the car is collected?

& honest people must wait 3 days before the funds clear it seems.

[Ironwood]

Yep, the seller doesn’t have much protection with PayPal