Online Scam Detected On Car Sales

[No Crust Racing]

I've been looking for a car recently and in the process came across a Silver 04 Model BA XR6, 123,000k's horrid chrome wheels but with an attractive sale price of $7600 - the cheapest 04 XR6 going around. I'm assuming it's stuffed or dodgy but thought what the hell can't hurt to enquire.

The seller, Jasin Derrington ([email protected]) explains that while the car is listed as for sale in QLD, it's actually stored in TAS at present as he has recently moved to Spain for work. Alarm bells are already ringing. I also negotitate on the price as I'd already bought a car, he knocks off $1K in an instant for a "quick sale".

He sends a link to a valid eBay webpage explaining how their buyer protection policy works and ensures you that it's all above board, you send eBay the $$, he sends the car, you accept the car if you are happy with it, they release the money. That part is all well and true excpet that eBay do not protect buyers when one party is overseas.

Scam detected. I contact carsales, they pull the ad and send me a legit email saying we are investigating. Shortly after I receive a reasonably legit looking email from "carsales" saying they have investigated and that the ad is all above board and that the seller has verfied ownership and vehicle details (shown below).

I search for the car on carsales, it doesn't exist anymore, I search the name on the email of the supposed carsales employee and the body of text and find numerous references to this exact message and scam setup on the net.

I also note the ebay account has only been active for less than a month, has zero feedback and is not listing the car as a sale item.

Buyers beware of this scam! I've been around long enough to pick up on the signs but I'm sure not everyone out there has been round the block enough to know the differences between a great deal and a scam.

This is purely a public service announcement, I haven't sent any money etc.

The seller also asked for my eBay user ID to initiate the transaction. I did provide it (I have enough strong password) to see what the response would be, they're attached below also. Note the address it comes from. eBay confirm this has NOTHING to do with them. I've also included the details he has put in for payment... notice the name Jason doesn't appear...

So there you have it, tell your friends, tell your mum and dad, partner etc.

Don't let these scumbags get away with this crap!

Edited October 14, 2010 by ActionDan

[xALmoN]

i guess, you don't buy a car without viewing it yourself?

[No Crust Racing]

I offered to have RACV inspect the car at my expense. Unsurprisingly he declined explaining that he didn't want someone else testing it while he wasn't there.

Yet he's happy to just freight it to someone no worries..

[No Crust Racing]

Further more... I thought I might at least waste some of his time

From: Dan Fewster [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Thursday, 14 October 2010 10:18 PM

To: 'Jason Derrington'

Subject: RE: XR6

No worries Jas,

I got it too.

I’m making payment now, can’t wait!

Cheers

Dan

From: Jason Derrington [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Thursday, 14 October 2010 10:13 PM

To: [email protected]

Subject: RE: XR6

Dan,

I got a letter from Ebay that they have sent you the invoice for the car. Just wanted to be sure that you've received it and that you understood how to make the payment and how to confirm it. Now I will wait for the confirmation from ebay that you have made the payment and I will start the shipping immediately.

Alongside the car you will receive all the papers,title,bill of sale signed by me,owner's manual and two set of keys so it will be no problem to register the car into your name.

Kind regards,

Jason Derrington

[Ten Four]

Oh.

I thought thats what a ford went for...

[DLOOOK]

Pretty much same story with another car on carsales. The guy moved to Spain for work and the car was in Oz. Ad said it was in NSW Regional, then he emails me saying the car is in Derby WA. Dodgy! I even emailed Carsales to ask them to investigate and they still haven't gotten back to me.

Here are the emails.

Hi,

No. The payment method will be bank transfer after you receive and inspect the car into ebay`s trust account.

Cheers,

Ben

From: xkxk

To: [email protected]

Subject: RE: Nissan Skyline GTR R33 SR 3 V-SPECT

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2010 16:56:53 +1000

.ExternalClass .ecxhmmessage P{padding:0px;}.ExternalClass body.ecxhmmessage{font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma;}Sounds good where is the car? Can I see it? Would you like me to send a direct deposit to Western Money Union??

From: [email protected]

To: xkjsdjkds

Subject: RE: Nissan Skyline GTR R33 SR 3 V-SPECT

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2010 02:32:58 +1030

.ExternalClass .ecxhmmessage P{padding:0px;}.ExternalClass body.ecxhmmessage{font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma;}Thanks for the enquiry,

The car is in excellent condition, the bodywork is immaculate, no dents or hidden defects and there is no outstanding finance on the car, also the car comes with a full service history. The price, including door to door delivery, is only $16,500 negotiable.

This is a very good price because I want a quick sale.

I must sell the car because I've just moved in Barcelona, Spain with my job (2 years contract ... so I'm forced to sell it because I can't afford to keep it and I need the money fast.

The car was advertised on eBay as well and prefer to close this transaction only though eBay for our own protection, because carsales doesn't provide us any purchase protection.

The payment method will be bank transfer because this type of payment is very safe. In this way both of us will start the deal with good faith so we can take it to a smooth end.

Hope to hear from you asap.

Warmly,

Ben McCaffrey

[d_liberate]

U should bait that sucker - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scam_baiting

[Charles89]

U should bait that sucker - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scam_baiting

Just read the definition on Wiki haha, someone should definitely do it

[d_liberate]

Just read the definition on Wiki haha, someone should definitely do it

check this site out for a good laugh - http://www.419eater.com/

[GTR-N1]

Do scams like these attract to you Dan; or do you gravitate to them?

Wrong car seats being sent to you... > and now this? You've certainly become an expert on smelling rats!!!!!

Cheers, Terry

[No Crust Racing]

Hah thanks Terry - I knew you'd poke your head in here. Or should I call you Poirot

The seats was clearly my fault, in a rush, sick of searching around and didn't pay enough attention to my "spider senses"

This time I was paying attention as I normally do.

The seats will be the first and last time I don't pay attention to what's going on!

In addition, The VIN supplied by the seller is legit and does not show any finance or theft etc. Nice touch to use details on a clean car.

At this stage he's waiting for my payment. I'm going to drag it on a bit and extract as much info as possible to pass on appropriate authorities. Yes I'm wasting my own time but this type of thing burns me up.

[xALmoN]

that is good on you, hope you get enough info.

[Iron Chef]

Hah thanks Terry - I knew you'd poke your head in here. Or should I call you Poirot

The seats was clearly my fault, in a rush, sick of searching around and didn't pay enough attention to my "spider senses"

This time I was paying attention as I normally do.

The seats will be the first and last time I don't pay attention to what's going on!

In addition, The VIN supplied by the seller is legit and does not show any finance or theft etc. Nice touch to use details on a clean car.

At this stage he's waiting for my payment. I'm going to drag it on a bit and extract as much info as possible to pass on appropriate authorities. Yes I'm wasting my own time but this type of thing burns me up.

What usually happens is the scammer will pose as a buyer to elicit as much information as they can from the real seller. I had the same thing happen to me about 5 years ago, and I sent a whole stack of info to the person inquiring, who then used that info to bait other people!

Ironically enough, the scammer advertised my car on carsales with a fake phone number, but I had my real number stuck on the car itself (in the pics in the ad), so a buyer rang me on my real number from the fake ad and ended up buying it!

419eater is an awesome site, highly recommended.

Edited October 14, 2010 by Iron Chef

[Beer Baron]

dude, the emails he sent are so obviously fake. in the one supposedly from ebay it says:

"next step to be taken:

read the invoice carefully and make payment to the ebay"

since when do emails from ebay sound like they are written by a nigerian ESL student?

the one from carsales is also very obviously bullshit. for starters he repeatedly abbreviates advertisement to "add" which is wrong. the abbreviation of advertisement is "ad". The other thing that marks it as bullshit is no way would any organisation like car sales or ebay for anyone for that matter would ever 'verify' a person as being legitimate. they would never risk that kind of liability exposure. It's so bad it's almost funny. "our staff verified both the seller and the vehicle". lol. "it's a genuine sale". double lol.

and if anyone was stupid enough to get through all of that, surely they would not be dumb enough to send money to an 'ebay account' with the account name benjiman ester in spain? I mean it went from "you send the money to ebay" to now "you send the money to an ebay verified agent". again you can see the bloke is obsessed with the word verified. with his limited vocabulary 'verified' is probably the most official sounding word he knows.

I honestly don't know how you even got that far. as soon as the bloke said, car is in TAS but I'm in spain, that's what you just delete his mails and walk away. there was no chance it was ever going to be legitimate. I don't understand how they successfully scam anyone as it's so half arsed and clearly bullshit. actually I do know how. greed. people really want to get that awesome deal so they push on in blind hope when even the slowest individual should be able to see it's a scam. sad. i guess it's like natural selection for your wallet.

[No Crust Racing]

That's my point Baron, When I reported it to carsales and had the ad pulled then started getting "carsales" emails etc I thought wow that is some effort to go to and to the untrained eye some of those emails might look legit. You and I can see that it's obviously fake, not everybody can pick it so I'm sharing it around so that perhaps others can be better prepared. Don't shoot the messenger

If there weren't people who fell for this then ACA would run out of stories to run pretty quickly.

Just trying to spread the word.

[GTR-N1]

Yeah they wouldn't do it unless "There's a fool born every minute!"

[Iron Chef]

dude, the emails he sent are so obviously fake. in the one supposedly from ebay it says:

"next step to be taken:

read the invoice carefully and make payment to the ebay"

since when do emails from ebay sound like they are written by a nigerian ESL student?

the one from carsales is also very obviously bullshit. for starters he repeatedly abbreviates advertisement to "add" which is wrong. the abbreviation of advertisement is "ad". The other thing that marks it as bullshit is no way would any organisation like car sales or ebay for anyone for that matter would ever 'verify' a person as being legitimate. they would never risk that kind of liability exposure. It's so bad it's almost funny. "our staff verified both the seller and the vehicle". lol. "it's a genuine sale". double lol.

and if anyone was stupid enough to get through all of that, surely they would not be dumb enough to send money to an 'ebay account' with the account name benjiman ester in spain? I mean it went from "you send the money to ebay" to now "you send the money to an ebay verified agent". again you can see the bloke is obsessed with the word verified. with his limited vocabulary 'verified' is probably the most official sounding word he knows.

I honestly don't know how you even got that far. as soon as the bloke said, car is in TAS but I'm in spain, that's what you just delete his mails and walk away. there was no chance it was ever going to be legitimate. I don't understand how they successfully scam anyone as it's so half arsed and clearly bullshit. actually I do know how. greed. people really want to get that awesome deal so they push on in blind hope when even the slowest individual should be able to see it's a scam. sad. i guess it's like natural selection for your wallet.

The interesting thing is the guy that was trying to scam me had really poor English, until I started baiting him and it actually started improving....hmmm...

[No Crust Racing]

I'm gonna start having some fun maybe...

On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 11:21 PM, Jason Derrington <[email protected]> wrote:

Dan,

Great. Don't forget to confirm the payment by sending a scanned copy of the transfer receipt from your bank at ebay at the following email : [email protected] so they can see that the payment has been made and send me the shipping instructions.

thanks,

Jas

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Dan Fewster <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Jas,

My bank said the account details did not exist, can you confirm what account I should be using? I must have made a mistake. It's been a very long week at work and I've been having problems with my other new car, the mechanic told me "This R2 unit has a bad motivator" which sounded expensive. Oh well.

Cheers

Dan

[.:: GimpS-R34 ::.]

LOL ask him if the flux capacitor is in good condition as there have been faults on it with that model

[kessian]

What a coincidence that i was just reading on the xtremesystem forums this exact same scam, but with iPhones!