ATTN MODS: First of all, I wanted to post this in the marketplace part of the forums since that is really where it should be, but I don't have perms to post in there. Perhaps a moderator can move this posting in there?

I just wanted to warn anyone looking to buy a G35 of a scam that I ran into.

Long story short:

1) ad placed in local paper for a G35 - $11k price, 11k miles
2) I thought maybe a divorce? Maybe a really motivated seller? I responded
3) The sellers are in the UK and "can't register the car there" and want to sell it here. Therefore the low price. They say now that the price is $8700
4) They send me 20 pics, plus the VIN ,and pics on the door where the VIN sticker is, and pics of the Odometer reading just under 11k miles
5) They want to use escrow for payment, via WorldPay (run by the Royal Bank of Scotland - very legit - more on this below)
6) I run a carfax. SHows 2 owners. 1st owner sold the car (off lease) at 11k miles. 2nd owner moved and registered the car in a new state. Shows 15k miles on the new state registration, IIRC. Starting to look fishy here!
7) I research WorldPay. They are legit and do merchant accounts for Europe. I see nothing about Escrow services at all. I ask the seller about the carfax discrepancy, WorldPay's seemingly non-existant escrow, and ask their location so I can have a friend in the UK come and look at the car.
8) They reply. Now they mention iEscrow and WorldPay. They do not mention the carfax discrepancy. They do not say anything about having my friend come and look at the car, etc. I start googling iEscrow and find a posting on a UK messageboard about used cars and iEscrow. Turns out (as I suspected) to be a scam. One of the posters posted the email that they got from the scammer. With a few alterations here and there, the email is almost exactly the email (at least in vital parts) that I got! This is no coincidence.

For further info on the letter, you can see my posting on that UK board here (the postings show my email and the other guy's email - you'll notice the similarity immediately):

http://www.usedcarmart.co.uk/forum/t...is-a-scam.html

FYI: The car is being shown as a 2004 red coupe (tan leather interior) with the following VIN: JNKCV54E24M81007

I believe that the scammers saw the ad placed by the 1st owner and grabbed all of the pictures. They probably looked specifically for an ad with lots of good photos. Then they perpetrated their scam. They did not think that the REAL new owner would put more miles on the car and that those miles would show up on the CarFax report!

I wonder if the REAL owner is actually on one of these G35 boards!

I will post this same message on the other G35 sites. Hopefully I will prevent someone else from being suckered!

Brain21

 

This type of scam is quite old and, unfortunetly, quite common. Always the same story: They are from somewhere else where they want to sell their car. When you ask to look at the car, they usually ignore you and give some type of answer that the car is unavailable. Really, I can't believe people still fall for this, and why people really think a great deal like this is legit.

 

ya man, this scam is pretty popular on ebay/craigslist. the same scam goes on for motorcycles(2900 for a bike thats easily worth 8500)

 

if it's too good to be true, it's a scam.

 

Yeah same thing happend to me when i was like to buy a supra. This scam is very common with the supras considering anything below about $15,000. Is this scam. The one i had the guy actually had the car in italy and wanted me to pay for it to be shipped here as well. My dads co worked happens to be from Italy and they have a service over there that you can pay this company and they will go and look at the car test drive it and give a review about it and thens end it to you. I told the guy i was going to have this company go and look a the car for me. When i told him this he never responded, but the car continued to be posted for sale. I sent him another email conserning the car on another email address (pretending to be someone elese) and he responded. So obviously he was ignoring that email knowing he was caught.

 

i agree the scam is old... however its wise to have one of these posts every now and then .... it will help some buyers and spreads the word around...

 

Very common scam. Seller's are always out of the country and they say that there is a third party taking care of the financial stuff. I almost got scam by one .

 

like the nigerian scams

Below is a link of a guy that fought back and pranked the scammers. A great read if you have the time.

http://www.p-p-p-powerbook.com/files/thepowerbook.pdf

 

bastards.... thats all im gunna say

 

Same thing happened to me when I was going to buy a lambo from ebay!! Beware of the 2nd chance offers

 

They do it to buy it also. They offer more than you ask and say they will pay shipping, you just drop it off and pick up the cashiers check. They say they will pay you more to cover the shipping, you just transfer the extra money back. Well, in all the transfers I guess they get enough info to hack your account.

My .02, if you plan to buy a used car without seeing it, it's too good to be true, AND things seem a bit odd. You are a fool to go through with it. I have a hard time with buying an unseen used car, unless it's from a dealer and even then.........

 

am sorry but my phone here doesn't accept long distance calls.Please email all your questions and i will be glad to help you.We must communicate by emails if is not a problem. Let me know what your intentions are.


that says enough....

 

^^^^That was a long read, but that's quite the story!

 

wow that was pretty good stuff. i actually skim through the whole thing..

anyways i had a lot of exp with scammers on ebay and recycler. the same thing with escrow services regarding motorcycles. also ebay scammers with the nigerai crap with ppl sending fake paypal payments. this is the reason why i havent been too active with those sites lately...

 

WOW that was a long story. but AWESOME!