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Scams selling a car, such as a 2005 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER, 2003
HONDA PILOT, allegedly in Canada, while the seller is in Scotland
Are you looking to buy or sell a car?? Did you respond to an ad
from someone claiming to be (at the moment) in Scotland, and the car is in
Canada? Newspapers, their online
classifieds, Craig's list and other online classified advertising websites,
from E-Bay to Yahoo Stores
have made it much easier to sell and buy articles from exercise equipment,
jewelry, to automobiles and even houses. But sometimes the buyer is more interested in passing a bad check
than buying your articles!
Here's how this scam works:
An seller says he'll sell a fantastic car in great shape
(he even has photos) at an absurdly low price, but he is temporarily "out of the
country", such as in Scotland, London, Nigeria, or another country. Note that the names of legitimate
people, vehicles and businesses are often used. Sometimes he claims it is a
business trip, other times, he is in the military, deployed overseas. Or
he may say he (or she) is a student overseas, or traveling to visit a sick
relative. Being unreachable and unable to come buy the car in person is
key to this scam. That enables the scam to agree to sell the car cheap and pay
for shipping. But he wants you to send him the money, or at least a deposit, via
Western Union.
Why Western Union?
When you send money by Western Union to the "shipper" (who is
actually the scammer), the money will be paid in cash by Western Union to
whomever picks it up using the numbers you provided. That money is
untraceable and irretrievable. Once you send money by Western Union to someone,
after they pick it up, it is gone forever.
Whatever money you send by Western Union will be gone. You
will NOT get it back.
What are the clues that this is a scam?
- First, you will notice the syntax and grammar. Often, is it
not pathetically bad, it's just plain strange. It looks like it was written by
someone who is not a native English-speaker, and writes very rarely in
English. This is very typical of scammers, who largely are in Nigeria and
have little formal education and probably none in English.
- The scammer wants the any money to be sent by Western
Union or Money Gram! Alarm bells should be going off by now. Western Union
wires and Moneygrams are not only untraceable, they're irretrievable. Once the
recipient picks them up (which can be done at ANY Western Union office in
the world), the money is gone, gone, gone!
- And then there are the little clues; signs like strange name changes, or
using words, grammar or spelling that is uncommon from his country, or
strange locations (he's away in Scotland, but lives in Canada, and the car
is in the U.S.)..
- Look at the huge number of misspellings, poor punctuation and made-up
words. Again, this is typical of the scammer filth
who live and operate in Nigeria.
An actual email that illustrate this type of CraigsList scam:
We may highlight passages that
illustrate typical scam clues:
Example 1:
Hello,
Sorry for the delayed response, but
I'm in Scotland
(United Kingdom) right now and I have been very busy. Anyway, thank you for
your interest in buying the 2005 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER .The car is located in
Canada right now. Why is the price so low?I am going trough a divorce, and
I
had to move out of Canada.So all that I want to do now is to sell the car at
this price, because I need to sell it fast.The title is clean. The car has
33,764 miles.It is in immaculate condition, rust free, no scratch at all and
hasn't been involved in any accident. The motor runs very well. The interior
looks great. This car needs nothing. I want this transaction to go smoothly
enough as I am caught in the middle of some very important events and have
little time to my disposal. I already have tones of emails so I hope you
understand that I need to sort them out. The price is
C$4,000.00. THIS IS MY
LAST PRICE.I will not negotiate the price. Also, I take in consideration
only those buyers who are really interested in buying the car, to be sure
that I don't waste my time with endless discussions. This way, I shall be
assured of the serious intentions.
Thanks
Example 2:
Hello,
Sorry for the delayed response, but I'm in Scotland
(United Kingdom) right now and I have been very busy. Anyway, thank you for
your interest in buying the 2003 HONDA PILOT .The car is located in Canada
right now. Why is the price so low?I am going trough a divorce, and I had to
move out of Canada.So all that I want to do now is to sell the car at this
price, because I need to sell it fast.The title is clean. The car has 48,000
miles.It is in immaculate condition, rust free, no scratch at all and hasn't
been involved in any accident. The motor runs very well. The interior looks
great. This car needs nothing. I want this transaction to go smoothly enough
as I am caught in the middle of some very important events and have little
time to my disposal. I already have tones of emails so I hope you understand
that I need to sort them out. The price is C$2,999.00. THIS IS MY LAST
PRICE.I will not negotiate the price. Also, I take in consideration only
those buyers who are really interested in buying the car, to be sure that I
don't waste my time with endless discussions. This way, I shall be assured
of the serious intentions.
Thanks!
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