The hallmarks of a typical scam.

[Qualin]

I saw an ad on Autotrader.ca for an BMW 135i. Basically, the mileage seemed to be reasonable. There was one photo of the car, but it could have been taken from anywhere. The person wanted $18,000 for the car, with about 11,000 km's on it and it was a 2008 model.

HUGE big red flag right now, but maybe perhaps they meant to type $38k instead of $18k.. It's possible, right? It's a common thing, scammers posting ads to Autotrader and auctions on Ebay for a price much lower than the actual car is worth.

So, I made an inquiry via the Autotrader.ca response system:

Hi. I'm interested in your 2008 BMW 135i. Can you tell me where the car is? Can you also let me know what option packages it has and the int/ext colour? As well, could you tell me the VIN of the vehicle?

I received this response in my inbox on Feb 4th:

Hello,
First I want to thank you for question about the 2008 BMW 135 i. The car is in perfect condition, no damage, perfect shape and the mileage is 12,000. It has all the papers and document and I am also the owner.
The price is CAD $18,000 including shipping to your address (only in Canada). The car is located in Canada but currently I am located in London, United Kingdom, because I just finished the divorce with my husband and i have moved here to my parents for a while. The transaction will be made only through ebay vehicle purchase protection program also the payment will be made through eBay and only after you will receive the car, I will receive the payment.

PS: If you are interested in buying it please provide me your FULL NAME and FULL ADDRESS & PHONE NUMBER so I can initiate the deal through eBay
I will wait your answer (if you are interested to buy) very soon and i will also explain you all terms for this transaction.

Thank you,

A couple of warning signs here:

1. The scammer is using a "hotmail.com" address and not a real e-mail address. I've seen this numerous times before.
2. The car is "Always" in perfect condition with "low" mileage. OK, So the price isn't a typo. Huge warning sign right there.
3. Note how they say, "Has all the papers" instead of saying, "Registration and Insurance"
4. The seller is located in a different country than where the car is. They just happened to have "moved" and are selling the car, but they don't mention who is selling it for them on their behalf. HUGE red flag right here! Note how they mention that they have "divorced" and that's the reason why they are selling the car .. Yeah right.
5. Why is the scammer mentioning "Ebay" when I posted my response from Autotrader? I didn't even see this on Ebay.
6. The scammer never answered my questions directly.
7. The scammer looks like they are using a form response.
8. Why is the scammer so intent on getting my address & phone number? What's wrong with e-mail?
9. It doesn't say it in the mail here, but the scammer is willing to ship the vehicle at their cost.. Another HUGE warning sign. It costs nearly $3k to ship a car across Canada. Nobody is going to pay that!

My response:

If the car has the documents you say, I would like to obtain the following:

- A copy of the vehicles registration when it was registered in Canada.
- Which province the vehicle was registered in and it's license plate number.
- The VIN number of the vehicle
- A copy of the insurance form so I can determine when the vehicle was last
insured legally in Canada.

I am not interested in having the vehicle shipped to Alberta, I would prefer to pick it up in person. Where the vehicle currently stored? Is there a
family member that I can contact in Canada to relay the funds for you?

The scammers response on Feb 8th:

Thank you for still being interested in buying my car, I will respond to all your inquires, but first let me explain you how the whole process for this transaction will work:

The car will be shipped from St. John's,
The vehicle is presently in street legal condition for use in worldwide, I have transferred full and perfect documents to ebay and I made a contract with them when I left Canada, to use ebay's protection to handle my deal,
I want to tell you that we will use ebay in this transaction in order for both of us to be 100% protected and insured by them, eBay will supervise over our transaction. They will take care of the shipping (The car is already at the shipping company with all papers and documents ready to be shipped) and all the small details. You will get the car and you will have 15 calendar days return-policy in which you can decide if you will buy the car or not. In the inspection period you can test the vehicle, go with the vehicle at your local mechanic for inspection, but do not put more then 200 Kms on it.
After your inspection period (15 calendar days) In case you won't like the car (not your case) and decide not to purchase it, you will notify eBay and you will send the car back on my expense with no further obligations, if you think the vehicle worth's his value and you will agree with the car and decide to make a final purchase at the end of the inspection period, you will send the funds (payment method and all the details will be set up by eBay) and you will keep the car.
Please get back to me with your FULL NAME & FULL ADDRESS and PHONE NUMBER so i can forward your details to eBay in order for you to receive your purchase invoice and if you will agree with what will find in the invoice will go from there,
eBay will contact you with an invoice and they will explain you how to start this transaction all the details and instructions for this transaction will be found in the invoice. If you will disagree with the transaction proposed by eBay and ebay's terms, We can simply cancel the whole transaction and you'll not have any obligations to purchase the vehicle or pay for something. I want you to know that I am looking for very serious person with funds available for this vehicle and also I still have a few offer's left.
I will be waiting for your reply to proceed further,

PS: Don't forget to send me your FULL NAME & FULL ADDRESS if you are really interested in this car.

1. Note the faulty grammer. "Use in Worldwide" ...
2. Note how the scammer STILL isn't answering my questions directly.
3. They keep mentioning Ebay. This still stinks.
4. Since when does Ebay supervise transactions? Sure, it's a legally binding contract and all, but it's between the buyer and the seller.
5. The car is already at the shipping company?! How convenient.
6. 15 calendar day return policy? I thought that I was dealing with a divorcee living in London, not a used car dealership?
7. Why 200 kms? Wait.. This person is going to let random people just go around and test drive the vehicle? Oh boy.
8. EBay is going to invoice me? Uhm.. Doesn't work that way. Any seller worth their salt would use a respectable escrow service. Especially if it were for this amount and for this nature of a transaction.
9. They have a few offers left. Right.

Just got this in my mailbox:

Hi there, The vin number is [REDACTED]

The car was brought from the states and has already been imported in Canada,
all taxes (GST , PST , Air Condition, Border) has been paid, but i didn't had the time
to register the car in Canada, that's why is appears to be registered in USA,
There are no liens or loans on the vehicle!
Everything was covered, i also left a recall later paper to the shipping company when i left
the country for the buyer to register the vehicle fast and easy, the vehicle will come with all papers and documents that you may need to registered into your name and location if you will decide to make a final purchase
after you 15 calendar days of inspection period, the bill of sale will be sent too and clear title
all signed and notarized by me with my signature on every paper clean to be transferred
into your name or purchaser name and area.
Don't worry everything was covered and everything is in order for your to get the car and registered into your name, I want you to understand very well that is no issue
regarding to this situation and i would never want to get involved in any kind of failure transaction, I will not waste your time or mine!

if you want to buy the car believe me that you will like the car and there would be no issue regarding the registration or any kind of problem!
Thank you very much for your time and interest!

1. Oddly enough the VIN Checks out. It's a 2008 135i w/ Automatic transmission. Hard to say where they got the VIN number from though.
2. They bought the car from the US, but it was never registered in Canada. Right. Another HUGE red warning flag. Why would you buy a car, spend money to get it imported but then not even register it?
3. I've asked TWICE for insurance. They haven't provided it. Who imports a car but then doesn't insure it for fire and theft? Another red flag. Would YOU drive a car without insurance on a track?!
4. More bad grammer. "Failure transaction" ? For someone who lives in the UK? Wow.

Way too many red flags here.

I just thought that it might be handy for me to post this here, this is a very typical scam, I've seen it numerous times on the Supra forums. The scammer always has a "perfect condition" 1998 Twin Turbo Supra with low kilometers on it and a low asking price.. Considering that they were an $83k car when they were selling in Canada, back in 1998.. selling it for $15k is going to raise some suspicions.

For the love of God, don't fall for these scams.

It's tempting to either just ignore it or trip them up on the details, like asking about clutch wear.. but anything else here is just a waste of time.

Anyway, This is just a FYI for all of you. If I can save someone from getting scammed, it'll really make my day.

Just a few pointers:

Tips that will save you from this type of scam:

1. eBay does not handle merchandise or hold and release funds
2. Make sure the email address on the ad listing and the one you communicate with are the same
3. Any e-mail address like msn/hotmail/gmail/etc should be a huge warning sign right off the bat. The e-mail address of the seller should always match up, not to mention that if you are dealing with someone who is "real", chances are, they'll have a real Canadian ISP, like Shaw or Telus for example. If the shoe fits...
4. Deal locally if you can and meet the seller in person
5. If you can't see it, smell it or touch it, don't buy it.

In seriousness though, How do I know if the car wasn't stolen, totalled and then repaired or maybe they drove it into a lake and then tried to sell it afterwards?

... and the old saying goes, "If the deal is too good to be true, it probably is..."

Here are some links I found after some simple Googling:

http://www.tacticaltechnique.com/veh...-program-scam/

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...4044007AAHxPJz

Oh.. And before I forget, here's some Escrow service information:

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/pay/escrow.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2002/10...ud_021028.html

Just a note, that there is a METRIC F***TON of fake escrow services out there. Use one with a signed Geotrust certificate and look on Google for reviews of that escrow service.

When in doubt, use escrow.com and nothing else.

[Yvette]

I agree this is 100% scam,
funny thing is they always ask our FULL NAME & ADDRESS & PHONE NUMBER
why?

[fwmcb]

I saw a lot of these when I was looking through the auto trader. Very tempting, but obviously too good to be true!

[BlackFlash]

haha, thanks for writing that up. Fun to read through.

You see the scams all the time, but I've always just ignore them (if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is).

I like the way they say the car is in St. John's. No one in their right mind is going to ship a car all the way to St. John's unless they are planning to drive it there. Absolutely no way.

Getting a vin is easy...a lot of dealers selling used cars put the VINs on their website.

I don't see a hotmail or a gmail address in a person to person transfer to be that big a red flag. I guess I have an email address with my ISP, but I've NEVER used it. My webmail address is on the top of my resume.

Funny how primitive a scam like this really is. If the story was real and they were desperate to offload it, they'd be selling the car for probably 30k, not 18. A price like that is ludicrous. A bit more sophistication and they'd lure in so many more people...

[BrokenVert]

When I was first getting into BMWs a couple of years back I found a 325i vert that I really liked and was going for 4K with decent mileage.

Well first the car was in North Carolina being sold by Jennifer something. About a week later the car was in Vermont being sold by a Douglas. Recieved an email from a diiferent email address.

The payoff was that the seller had a 3 day moneyback offer. If you didnt like the car you could ship it back to them for free within 3 days.

Are people actually stupid enough to fall for this crap?

[mikeyb99]

You should have said you live in St. John's and would like to see the car first!

[johndeere]

First I want to thank you for question....who says that? LOL

I always play around with them when I come across shit like that.

[Lester]

They want your name and address so they can steal your identity.

[anthony747]

A local Car Restoration Shop (Defenders Northwest LLC. - Gig Harbor, WA): According to the promise they made, the repair work was supposed to be completed within a week. However, it seems like the process is taking longer than expected due to the unavailability of certain parts required for the repair. It is quite frustrating as it would have been better if they had communicated the delay upfront, so that we could have made alternative arrangements accordingly.