Selling my Car (Tin Top)

[Timmay Zoom Zoom]

Hi All,

I have listed my tin top car (Seat Leon Cupra) on Autortader. In around 2hrs of it being posted I got e-mails from a person very interested.

They are suggesting they are not available to pick up but a 'Mover' will come and look at the car and collect.

They insist on paying via pay pal and are giving me my full asking price.

Just wanted your thoughts as I do not sell cars very often and it seems fishy to me, what do you suggest?

Does it sound like a scam, has any body else had this, or could it be legitimate?

Cheers

Tim

[Captain Colonial]

VERY fishy to me, doesn't sound legit at all, especially the PayPal bit and the 'mover'.  Unless the car is ridiculously undervalued, and even then, would you buy a car unseen through Paypal and use someone else to move it?

Maybe I'm old and paranoid, but...

[carpetstu]

theres a bit about it here

linky

Total scam !!

[Cleggy the Spyder Man]

tell them you will only accept cash and will go to the bank with them to pay it in with them (or the mover)

my guess is you will not hear from them again

[AdamR]

Yep, had something similar selling my car on there... Ignore!

Edit: Or do as above

[Doug Dastardly]

There was a story in motorcycle news last week about this sort of thing.

Scammers can send fake emails (supposedly) from paypal saying your account has been credited. They look real.

Also if you pay a cheque into your account it will show on your balance before it is actually cleared. It takes six working days for a cheque to clear.

[Timmay Zoom Zoom]

Cheers,   I thought it was a bit too good to be true. I wonder if anybody actually lost out from this?

[Ciprian]

scam scam scam. run!

[Rab (bombero) Reid]

Very suspicious indeed!    However, PayPal itself is a safe and efficient transaction portal. If you actually get the asking price transferred to your account, you can just as quickly transfer it to your regular bank account  

If however, you get the 'PayPal are witholding funds until you send the goods' then it's a get lost, mate!  

[Rab (bombero) Reid]

There was a story in motorcycle news last week about this sort of thing.

Scammers can send fake emails (supposedly) from paypal saying your account has been credited. They look real.

Also if you pay a cheque into your account it will show on your balance before it is actually cleared. It takes six working days for a cheque to clear.

This is very true, mate but one must NEVER follow links from such emails!! Whenever I log into my PayPal account, it is ALWAYS through my favourites and I check that it's their https page.

People must learn to be a bit more savvy on t'internet! I always ignore these scammy emails. PayPal (like banks) will always use your name on emails to you and not Dear PayPal User or Dear Bank of Blah Customer .. !!

[AdamR]

If you actually get the asking price transferred to your account, you can just as quickly transfer it to your regular bank account  

Only problem then is that Paypal can reverse the transaction (following a complaint from the purchaser), leaving your account with negative balance, then they will automatically credit it from the bank account linked to your Paypal account!

Had this a few times and it's always a pain.

[Dibby]

If you fling enough crap at a wall some of it will stick, even if 0.01% of people fall for it, a Nigerian scam artist can retire off a single scam pulling off.

Either ignore it or have some fun with them: Linky

Scambaiting is quite fun, sold my old MKII Escort years ago, bombarded with scam emails so I lead a few on a merry dance. Couldn't get a photo out of them but I got a cheque for £5000 (for a £250 car) made out to my supposed agent, a Mr Hugh G Rection, the printed cheque wasn't even cut out straight.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman)]

The biggest issue with PayPal on high ticket items is the shear length of time after the sale that they can void it and claw the money back from you.

[Dibby]

The biggest issue with PayPal on high ticket items is the shear length of time after the sale that they can void it and claw the money back from you.

Same goes for cheques, it appears to have cleared in your account but it takes days to verify it through the banks and they can claw the money back weeks after you think it has cleared and hand the keys over.

Even with cash, a good fistful of fakes will fool 99% of us.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman)]

PayPal can and do reclaim funds months later.

S you say, though people do get caught out with banks too. The common one a few years ago was the foreign cheque paid into a UK account; technicalities in the system meant that they showed up as cleared in your AC after the same amount of time a normal UK cq would, so you'd happily release the goods, only to find within the next couple of days that the cq was stolen/fake etc. and had been declined and the funds would mysteriously disappear back out of your account.

To further rub salt into the wound, a lot of the scammers were actually offering to pay and extra amount over what the car was worth so that you could "pay" the shipping agent that came to collect it. Not only were you left without the car, but you'd lost extra cash on top.