Thread: CAR SCAM FOR SELLERS BEWARE! PLS READ!

So you all know my GT2 is for sale.. Which I've barely trying to sell, but really gotta get rid of.. anyways the other day I received this text

FRM:gary_wolf1948@yahoo.com
SUBJ:Vehicle Inquiry
MSG: Hi,

If your vehicle is still available for sale kindly can contact me via my E-mail.

Regards,
Mr.Gary
textforfree.org

I'm already suspicious. I email him and get this response. Keep in mind, every return email he sent had a new subject.

Hi Stephen,
Thanks for the email. I have a client who is very much interested in buying your vehicle. He happened to budget for a car last time and unfortunately it was sold. I have discussed with him and he has agreed that he will be willing to have the vehicle shipped to Canada upon reaching an agreement with you.

Please I have Some Questions to Ask:
1) Is the engine in perfect condition?
2) How often do you service the Vehicle?
3) How many miles on the Vehicle now?
4) Are you the owner?
5) If yes, for how long did you use Vehicle?
6) Exterior and interior pics
7) Finally At what price are you willing to sell this Vehicle to Us ...Bottom price.
8)Warranty
9) Vin #

Regards,

Mr.Gary Wolf.

It's very clear at this point, he has no idea what car of mine is for sale, or if he does, he's copy/pasting generic answers. So I responded

Where did you see my vehicle for sale?

His response was the same exact email. So I thought, well, let's see what kind of scam this is and what exactly they think they're going to get away with. I could understand a seller pretending to sell a car, but I've never heard it the other way around. I responded with what he asked save for a fake VIN # just to see where this was going...

Hi Brian,
I have forwarded your vehicle information to my client and after evaluation and due to time constraint on the fact that we are running short of time. I'm delighted to tell you that my client has recommended your vehicle, with full interest and he has instructed me to carry on with this transaction.

Hope the engine and body is in perfect condition? He also instructed me to inform you that payment will get to you in a cashier check of $81,000.00 which is a refund payment of a cancelled order earlier made by my client. Due to company policy this check has to be made out in this amount to you, Because company policy only allows a refund payment on one cashier check. He finally made an offer $75,000.00USD,hope it's acceptable.

So you are required to deduct the cost of your vehicle (car) $75,000.00USD, when payment gets to you and refund balance $6,000.00USD to the Agent ( Our Shipper ) for him to be able to offset shipping & tax charges, and other cosmetic repair costs.After payment has reached you and balance sent to shipper, the shipper's agent will come for inspection, pick up (of vehicle & signing of title papers),make some cosmetic touches and drive to a prepaid shipper to be shipped to my customer.Please confirm this and forward the following informations;

Names On The Check:

Address Where The Check Should Be Mailed To:

Phone Number #:

For payment to be made and send to you as soon as possible. Your honesty, understanding and co-operation will be highly appreciated.

Thanks for your anticipated co-operation.

Best regards,

Mr.Gary Wolf.

I'm not brian! lol I'm hoping you guys can help me figure this out.. Are they hoping I give them my address and then they come steal the car? I couldn't imagine them sending me an actual check because it would obviously be a fake check....

I'd LOVE to fvck these guys over because I hate scam artists and they should be butt raped in prison, but I figure if I'm talking with them, maybe it's time spent away from an actual potential victim.

Get a mailbox at a UPS Store and have them send it there.

Will they actually send me a check? I don't understand how this scam would work. If they send me a check and it doesn't clear then I don't send them money. If they send me a check and it clears, then I actually have $75k.

Edit: My last post was confusing haha. It's a well known scam, just delete the emails.

The scam is not about coming to your house and stealing your car its about you sending them $6000. This has been going on for years..

I've gone through the same thing to the same conclusion. I gave them my addy so I could have a fake note. Sure enough it showed up and I went to the bank who said it was indeed fake. Now its collecting dust on my wall.

I think that they're probably hoping that you're so excited about their offer that you'll send them the 6 grand, before the check they sent
you clears. Assholes!

Originally Posted by Interman

I think that they're probably hoping that you're so excited about their offer that you'll send them the 6 grand, before the check they sent
you clears. Assholes!

Bingo. They send you a check and ask you to wire amount in excess prior to their check coming back bad. I have a few if these checks on my wall made out to various names such as Chuck Norris and Billy Badass.

In reality, you are correct. Scam artists do in fact have the highest percentage of being rapped in prison. On a more related note, I had this happen to me too, they had me at first but then they sent me an email in spanish, so I understood what was happening. Good call for not being a victim.

I had a similar thing happened to me a few months ago, but the item in question was a wrist watch of mine. The value of the watch was about USD15,000 and I posted the for sale ad on a very highly respected watch forum. There was no biter for a couple of weeks and suddenly I got an email from a guy who told me that he's a westerner expatriate (like that matters!?! First alarm bell ringing) living and working in Malaysia, which is a neighboring country to where I live in Indonesia. He told me he had been looking for this particular watch forever and he was very happy that I have it for sale. He said he was not even going to bargain the price and wanted to pay me for it immediately (alarm bell no 2 ringing!). So, I emailed him back and told him that I wanted full payment by wire transfer which he agreed to immediately (at this time I was semi-convinced this is a scam, but I am not sure how he is going to wire me any money...). He said the watch will need to be DHL/Fedex/TNT -ed to Malaysia by first class overnight insured mail then he even proceeded to tell me to wait until the funds is cleared from my bank in case I was worried that he won't pay. I said OK, no problem. Coincidentally, a friend of mine was coming to visit me from Malaysia, so I did what I thought was a favor to the guy and to save him some shipping costs and emailed him and told him that I could save him a lot of money in shipping, insurance and import duty if he could wait a couple of days for my friend to come over and bring it back to malaysia with him. He wrote back almost immediately and said that he would be charging this deal on his company account and he would need an official receipt and pay the full import duty in order to make it "legalized" for his company expense. I was like uh.....you gonna pay 25-30% more and actually be OK with it? He said yeah, that's the only way his company would allow him to charge it on its account (final alarm rings!). At the end, I told him OK I will wait for a full wire transfer that is certified by my bank before I can ship anything. He never responded.