How can we stop car scams? and related rambling discussions.

[samanthajane]

I have read many stories on here as well as other sites and i must admit i thought to myself " how can anyone be fooled by this anymore?" surely it is common knowledge now that these car scams are everywhere...so not the case.

I woke this morning to a conversation with my bf to say that he wouldn't be around to mind the kids a week on saturday because he had something on and does he want me to ask his parents to mind the kids that day. So i said yes and then asked what was he doing.

To cut a long story short he was flying to LIVERPOOL to collect a car that he had arranged to buy on carzone. It was a great deal for only 3,500 euro.

The first words out of my mouth was " have you sent the western union yet?"....got a look of shock from him, then I said i bet he has to fly in from another country.....another look of shock.

Indeed he had recieved the bog standard email of he had purchased the car for his brother in Ireland who had moved to the UK and had died. And that he had to get the western union in his name...blah...blah...blah...we all know the rest.....OR DO WE???

He had never heard of these types of scams before, thought he ws getting the best deal in the world.

I would never of thought in a million years that he would be fooled by one of these scams. He was going to get the western union this morning, book a flight to liverpool and book the ferry back.

He pointed out something to me, that the only reason i do know about these scams is because of AAM, and he's right, i have never seen anything about these scams on the telly, heard about them on the radio, or read about them in a newspaper, and i've neved had a converstation about car scams with anyone else. I'd like to think if i had never heard about them here, and if i was in this situation that i wouldn't fool for it and be taken in. But if i hadn't i could of said this morning " road trip!!! can i come as well, thats a great deal"

So thanks AAM you've just saved us about 4k.

But what about other people who dont use AAM?

The only way to stop this happening ( as well as all the other scams ) is for people to know about them.

So whats the best way to do this???

 

[jhegarty]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

We need to pass a law putting an obligation on western union to query someone sending money for scams.

 

[Padraigb]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

We need to pass a law putting an obligation on western union to query someone sending money for scams.

That is not practicable in that form, as people are entitled to some confidentiality. I have never used Western Union, so I don't know how they handle transactions. But they must be aware that a proportion of the money they process is because of scams. Perhaps they should have a system for raising customer awareness of the possibility -- a challenging notice headed "Are you sure you are not being scammed?" with a description of some of the better-known scam operations.

 

[jhegarty]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

That is not practicable in that form, as people are entitled to some confidentiality.

The banks can manage it.

There could also be an option for people not to declare what the money is for , but they would have to sign a waver saying they aware of the risks.

 

[samanthajane]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

I think we also have to know how it works as well, I'm still at a loss of how they manage to get away with it.

I've only once had to recieve money from western union, for €100 euro. And i've only sent money once for €150.

I had to have the code which the sender gave to me ( Since the scammer is not actually going to be collecting the money ( or so he says ) how does he get this code? I'm assuming it's on the sheet that people are scanning and e-mailing over.Maybe the system needs to be changed that the code doesn't appear on the sheet you get it seperately.

Then i had to answer/give a "secret question" again same as above the question and the answer might be written on the sheet. Needs to be changed.

After all that i have to give my i.d (passport,) and it was checked and they had to input my passport number. Now it's easy enough of fake a passport or driving licence but the number has to be fake, there no way they could know your passport/driving licence number ( or am i away in fairyland here ) It's all well and good writting down the number but if it's not checked agaist the correct number whats the point? by time you're realised you've been done it too late. Have no idea what would be involved in setting up a system that would be able to check for the correct number, but i can imagine millions!

 

[mathepac]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

... But what about other people who dont use AAM?

The only way to stop this happening ( as well as all the other scams ) is for people to know about them.

So whats the best way to do this???

Are we edging into Shooting the Breeze territory here, rather than Cars & Motoring?

I'm glad to hear that with AAM's help you saved your boy-friend's bacon, but at a practical level, I can't see how to prevent people responding to "too-good-to-be-true" deals.

 

[truthseeker]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

Indeed he had recieved the bog standard email of he had purchased the car for his brother in Ireland who had moved to the UK and had died.

Slightly off topic - but whatever about car scams in particular, surely anyone who uses email/is remotely savvy would know at this stage that any too good to be true offer received out of the blue via email is a scam?

 

[samanthajane]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

I only posted it in cars and motoring because that's where the other posts about car scams were, but by all means move it if you think it would be better in shooting the breeze.

In his case it wasn't so much about the too goo to be true, of course that factored in as well but he had never heard about the scams at all. He had heard about the emails you get from people who's father had been murdered and they were left with 20 million and wanted to use your bank account ect ect.

He said that the website should have a warning on the homepage which would be a great idea but there's obviusly no law about this as none of them do have warning about scammers. And from reading other people's post they dont seem to be doing much about it.

He was a bit embarrassed when i showed him other emails from scammers, that were nearly identical, and pointed out what they actually do, couldn't believe he was mins away from being one himself. After i had shown him these he could clearly see it was a scam, it's just something he has never come across before or heard about. That's the main problem there must still be loads of people that dont know these are scams.

If someone was aware of these and then still made the decison to go ahead i agree not much can be done about it.

 

[samanthajane]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

Slightly off topic - but whatever about car scams in particular, surely anyone who uses email/is remotely savvy would know at this stage that any too good to be true offer received out of the blue via email is a scam?

The email wasn't out of blue he had sent an email first after seeing the car advertised on carzone.

As for being savvy-obviously he's not!! I would of thought he would of picked up on it straight away. He played into his hands by saying he would be uncomfortable with carrying that amount of cash what about a bank draft, and then western union was mentioned.

To any scammer after i had read all the emails that were sent/recieved he was a prime target. Even said how sorry he was about his brother!! At the moment he's waiting on an e-mail from him with the western union reciept since he said he was going to do it today. I'm just so glad he told me about it before he did it. It's only cause i was half awake at 6.30am before he went to work that he mentioned it. I was already asleep when he was e-mailing this guy last night!

 

[truthseeker]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

The email wasn't out of blue he had sent an email first after seeing the car advertised on carzone.

Forgive me - clearly IM not familiar with the scam.

Just to get this straight:
1:A car was advertised on carzone.
2:He emailed the advertiser.
3:The advertiser emailed back saying lots of stuff about a dead brother and having to pick up the car in Liverpool and transfer money Western Union?

How does the rest of the scam work (if your OH had gone ahead with it?).

I must admit, if I received an email of the nature of step 3 above in response to a car advertisement, Id be dubious at the elaborate set up of dead brothers and having to go to Liverpool but transfer money separately etc.....

 

[mathepac]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

... How does the rest of the scam work ...

Try searching for 'car scam' in AAM. There are multiple threads / posts about the various versions.

Please don't start another one...

 

[truthseeker]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

Please don't start another one...

No intention of - not sure why you would think i would based on the question I asked in my last post.

Try searching for 'car scam' in AAM. There are multiple threads / posts about the various versions.

Did so.
It seems obvious to me by the emails from the scammers thats its dodgy. Poor spelling, lots of odd information about different countries etc... Being asked to send money (and very detailed instructions about the sender not being the receiver etc...), the whole thing just seems way too elaborate to be real.

Maybe Ive just got a high radar for rubbish, but personally I think any of the versions of the scam reported by the OP are obvious as dodgy deals.

 

[MandaC]

Re: How can we stop car scams??

No intention of - not sure why you would think i would based on the question I asked in my last post.



Did so.
It seems obvious to me by the emails from the scammers thats its dodgy. Poor spelling, lots of odd information about different countries etc... Being asked to send money (and very detailed instructions about the sender not being the receiver etc...), the whole thing just seems way too elaborate to be real.

Maybe Ive just got a high radar for rubbish, but personally I think any of the versions of the scam reported by the OP are obvious as dodgy deals.

Maybe I am just like you truthseeker and have a high radar for rubbish but I cannot believe anyone, even without our AAM savvy would fall for this scam.

I do think, however, that Carzone should do more to advertise the fact that this (the car is in Liverpool, the Car is in Germany) are scams and they should be more pro active on this side and in removing the dodgy ad.

I do know someone who fell for (the money is in the suitcase in the boot of the car in Heatrow(sp!) from the president of who-flung-dung in darkest Africa and over the course of 2 years sent over 20K. This person was a professional and greed in the reason I give for him falling for it. He had 3 full lever arch files full of e-mails, etc and asked me to go through it to see if I thought it was a scam. I spent an afternoon reading through the files from start to finish and the whole thing was so off the wall I could not believe any person was so guillable, so there you go.