Scam Warning!

[loki]

For those of you selling a vehicle I thought I would share a little story. This afternoon I got a call about my van the guy sounded professional, I was thinking too myself that it was a little wierd as I couldn't imagine a dealer calling to buy a Delica. He asks a bunch of questions about the van KM, animals/kids in it, when it was detailed last what I'm asking for it (11,800) and so on. Then he tells me that he is with a financing company and has a client that is pre-approved for the "blue book value" for an L300 which is 13,000, this set off more alarm bells as I reasonably sure that Delicas are not in any blue books and if they where they would likely be massively under valued. Then the fun part, he tells me that all I need to do is pay them $500 to cover their costs of bringing the client in and such but it is a guaranteed sale. This leads me to say well then if your going to be giving me 13,000 anyways, why not just give me 12,500 instead. Oh no no it's not a commission blah blah blah, he then pushes the guaranteed sale side (unless I'm hiding something about the van). I them state that it sounds a bit like a scam, he then gets aggressive and angry sounding, asking "you want to sell your van don't you?" I tell him that I do but paying someone up front to give me money sounds like a scam, he tries to continue and I hang up on him.

so keep this in mind if you selling a vehicle

[jessef]

Nigerian scam artists racked in enough cash to start scanning craidslist ad's with visible phone numbers and then place the call with the same typical email info/scam.

[MitsuDeli]

This sounds like a couple of messages that were left for me when I was selling a vehicle. I did not answer when the person called but the messages stated that they would sell my car, guaranteed. Guaranteed... or else???? That was never explained. Mine was advertised on Craigslist, so I guess that is where they find their prey. It really angers me when these guys prey on people who they feel are desperate to sell. I think a good old fashioned punch in the pills might be in order...

Brian

[Aztec Nomad]

For those of you selling a vehicle I thought I would share a little story. This afternoon I got a call about my van the guy sounded professional, I was thinking too myself that it was a little wierd as I couldn't imagine a dealer calling to buy a Delica. He asks a bunch of questions about the van KM, animals/kids in it, when it was detailed last what I'm asking for it (11,800) and so on. Then he tells me that he is with a financing company and has a client that is pre-approved for the "blue book value" for an L300 which is 13,000, this set off more alarm bells as I reasonably sure that Delicas are not in any blue books and if they where they would likely be massively under valued. Then the fun part, he tells me that all I need to do is pay them $500 to cover their costs of bringing the client in and such but it is a guaranteed sale. This leads me to say well then if your going to be giving me 13,000 anyways, why not just give me 12,500 instead. Oh no no it's not a commission blah blah blah, he then pushes the guaranteed sale side (unless I'm hiding something about the van). I them state that it sounds a bit like a scam, he then gets aggressive and angry sounding, asking "you want to sell your van don't you?" I tell him that I do but paying someone up front to give me money sounds like a scam, he tries to continue and I hang up on him.

so keep this in mind if you selling a vehicle

Hey,
This exact same thing happened to me when I was trying to sell my 71 ford bronco. Word for word. In the end I did the same just hung up. Some people could get caught by this scam so hopefully word is getting out there.
Adam

p.s I should mention that this occurred about a year and half ago, so they're still trying.

[psilosin]

Lol I had the same story more or less when selling my Celsior and Surf. Between the scammers and the reps from AutoTrader that call daily, trying to sell a vehicle gets annoying very fast.

[JMK]

loki,

Good for you for recognizing it so fast (and the rest of you too). Every day when I watch the news about how seniors get scammed (again) I wonder if it has something to do with the generation they grew up in, or just the downside of getting old and sometimes the feeble mindedness that can go with it for some.

I personally would enthusiatically support capital punishment for these scammers.

[konadog]

Nasty business indeed - But I thank GOD I live in a country where the state has no power to execute people no matter what they have done. And it's not about letting criminals off the hook either, but rather what kind of society the rest of us want to live in - not to mention David Millgaurd, Donald Marshall, Steven Truscott....
Good luck selling your bus Loki :)

[Adrock]

Was he willing to meet face to face?

This could be fun...

[loki]

Was he willing to meet face to face?

This could be fun...

somehow I doubt that would have happened. I was amused but didn't really want to continue as he started to get aggressive.

[mararmeisto]

I wonder if he is willing to put forward a deposit to guarantee my deposit on his guaranteed sale of my vehicle? I mean, just so he knows that I'm serious about seriously considering his offer of service from a serious customer...

...okay, that's just getting silly.

And now for something completely different...

[jaggedfish]

Same thing happened to me as well for my little red pickup. The caller even 'legitimized' things by telling me to go to their website (which existed). He told me he had a buyer - a girl who couldn't get financing thru regular banks, blah, blah, blah, who had contacted him to finance the vehicle. The alarm bell for me was the conversation seemed to be a lot about financing which gave me the impression t applied to me - something I'm not interested in if I am the seller - and the price was $250 and they could guarantee a given price near to my asking price which is much higher than 'book value' as it is a custom truck. The reds flags obliterated my view at that point and I didn't pursue it further - I have in other instances to see where it would go - without handing over any money, of course.

The other scam is the really nice vehicle for sale for a really good price with claims the person is living overseas and had their vehicle shipped to their overseas location. They supposedly never registered the vehicle in the country they are located in and would cover the shipping costs as part of the price. The claim is that the vehicle won't have any duties because the registration is still for the country (province or state) of origin.

Steer clear of these!
Cheers!

[tigger]

You should have sent him a couple of $250 dollar bills.

[jaggedfish]

You should have sent him a couple of $250 dollar bills.

LOL! Never thought of that. This poses a question...

If you scam a scammer, has a scam really been committed... or do two negatives really make a positive? Hmmm....

[mararmeisto]

You should have sent him a couple of $250 dollar bills.

LOL! Never thought of that. This poses a question...

If you scam a scammer, has a scam really been committed... or do two negatives really make a positive? Hmmm....

Or...

...do two wrongs make a right? As in RHD?

Oh, oh, I'm so gorram funny!

[FlyingBarney]

You should have sent him a couple of $250 dollar bills.

LOL! Never thought of that. This poses a question...

If you scam a scammer, has a scam really been committed... or do two negatives really make a positive? Hmmm....

Or...

...do two wrongs make a right? As in RHD?

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day about the fact that in many languages, such as English, a double negative forms a positive, while in other languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. “However,” he pointed out, “in no language can a double positive form a negative.”

A bored voice from the back of the room responded, “Yeah, yeah....”