Hi all.
Sorry about the new post not telling you about my new project.
Would just like to make people aware of this fraudulent owner to be cautious if it becomes for sale again, and if any body has any info brilliant!.
As the people who live at the address decided to say go away to my recovery truck driver on the agreed collection date despite payment. He now has turned his phone switched off constantly.

 

And the police are doing ?

 

If this is deals over internet probs nothing.. as there see it as internet fraud and not unless you have done like 20k plus in there aint bothered... i know loads of people and heard stuff about like con ads like snap on tools, barn finds but weather its 500 or 5000 there dont really do anything about it... it must be a gray area in law and if your a c$$t you can make alot of money by doing it

 

The police just issued a crime reference number.
I’ll hear back from action fraud in 28 days and my banks fraud team in 14 days.
It would be sad for sure if he is able to walk away with both the money and car, and I’m sure if I knocked on his door I would be in the back of a police car within 10 minutes

 

As expected...why do police never bother with real crimes ? Seems so bizarre when stuff like that is a multi million ŁŁŁ crime around the nation.

"Oh let's give it a name so we don't have to investigate or do anything about it....let's all go and wave speed cameras about instead."

 

Just pay by PayPal so you have protection, or cash on collection, I presume you have paid via bank transfer ?

 

It is mad that they just fob most of this stuff off.
Im going to go inside the police station tonight and see if they can seize the car or arrest him as surely it's handling stolen goods or keeping goods under the proceeds of crime act or something like that. Unfortunately yes a bank transfer, it is a bit mad how this is the most non safe method possible, like you said paypal, or with a debit card in a card machine is the safest way possible to beat the fraudsters.

 

Have you actually seen the car?

 

Any solicitors advice yet ?

And make sure you keep records, copies of all adverts, communications, messages, whatever. You'll need it.

 

Possibly another negative, no I didn’t go to view the car, primarily due to being busy with work and it being due for delivery to a friends bodyshop to be stripped down to a shell for a rebuild so I wasn't to worried about the condition. I was talking to him on the phone for about 30 minutes about the car and his job, life and past/current cars.
i had no concern that he was a rat but certainly a lesson learnt for sure.

Much agreed I certainly have enough evidence for a case, but currently neither the police/bank or action fraud have wanted it so I’m not sure why that is.

 

Seek legal advice, and perhaps that of local media/politicians who can try and hold the police to account for failing in their duty to tackle criminals.

 

I’m most certainly going to need a third party professional involved as I’ve just been in my local police station and the crime that he has committed that I’ve reported isn’t even on there system.
I did suggest that they go and arrest him and bring him in for questioning or seize the vehicle as to which i got a nice reply of “don’t tell us how to do our job” not looking good for the working class at all.

 

How much have you parted with? I've done loads of deals without seeing the car, I normally pay a small deposit and send a driver with the balance with instructions to walk away if its not as described

 

He probably doesn't own the car, and the address you have is just random. It's a common scam. I bet the price wad well under normal as well right?

 

My son got caught in a similar way back in the summer, posted about it here - https://passionford.com/forum/genera...-scamming.html

Basically, as he’d shown enough due diligence before parting with the cash, the bank ended up refunding his money, as they’re obliged to if their accounts have been used to perpetuate the fraud, but it was only the fact he could show evidence of the checks that he got it back, without that, he’d have been screwed.
The police aren’t interested, too much else to do, and Action Fraud are just a waste of time, just a statistics gathering exercise as far as I can tell

 

It was Ł3700, If that’s too cheap for one that’s listed as a project needing work and paint I’m not sure. Yeah I’m certainly a bit more up to date regarding how to purchase a car now but to be honest I’m not sure it’s worth the hassle and agro going through the purchase process again. I have just been to another police station who was better at explaining the process of fraud, due to fraud being widespread individual police division won’t get involved for that reason, so they pass it onto action fraud who work globally and link all the pieces to the puzzle together.
That certainly sounds good that the bank paid for that case of your sons but mine wasn’t to enthusiastic to begin with.

 

Don’t just speak to your bank, speak to the recipient bank too. He sent money to a Barclays account. We phoned them, and they froze the target account immediately pending investigation.
hopefully you’ll get something back if you persist

 

There bank (metro) was the first place i went to tell them with his name and account number, they said to speak to my bank, maybe I’ll try again but maybe more local rather than a big bank in London. Or even better the actual location of the sort code 23-05-80 👍

 

Where was the car located ?

 

It was apparently in selby North Yorkshire.
I’ve been to two metro banks today both saying that my bank has to sort it out not them. I’m in London tomorrow so I’m going try a few there. Maybe there might be someone higher up the ladder than the Sunday staff.

 

That sort code comes up as

1 Southampton Row
London
WC1B 5HA

If you didn't already look it up...

 

Thanks for the confirmation but yeah I only checked that yesterday.
Its certainly another odd bit to the puzzle given he was from Yorkshire with the matching accent but he has a London sort code.
It is a bit mad that metro seem to be putting it on my bank to sort it out even though they are part of the problem for actually letting him have a bank account in the first place.

 

You can't blame the bank.... All they've heard is your claim... They didn't take your money.... You sent it of your own free will and as harsh as it may sound why should someone else pay for your nievety?
Why wouldn't you either go yourself to view and buy or as previously said send someone else to view and make payment cash on collection especially as its a decent amount of money ?
I'd sometimes pay a deposit.... I'd never pay the full amount until I'm there on site face to face.

It only takes half an hour or so for a mobile bank app payment to show on the sellers account so we sit in the car waiting for clearance .. until we're good to go .

 

Err yes i can blame the bank actually because they have allowed a fraudster to have a bank account.
At no point have i asked somebody to pay for my supposed stupidity.
I sent the money as a return for goods most certainly not at free will or in banking terms a gift.
I’ll admit I’m not Mike Brewer when it comes to buying/selling cars, and if that means writing the money off then so be it, but that still doesn’t mean he should get away with it.

 

It's quite simple, a crime has been committed, it is fraud, only a dick would suggest otherwise.

It's how conmen work...they con people put of money !

 

How does his bank know he's a fraudster....? Of course it's a crime and hopefully the police will get him to court and hopefully a bank will refund your cash but at the end of the day it's your fault for transferring such a large amount of money to someone you'd never met for a product you'd never seen !
I mean why would someone send the full amount before the day of trade?
Your only recourse might be via a court but then if he has no assets its not hard for that sort of person to dodge it!

 

The bank doesn't, but when it has been raised with the police etc....they and the banks should be dealing with it promptly.

Which in many respects is the biggest disgrace here, the lack of action by authorities makes it so easy for scammers to get away with it.

Even on local news only a few days ago, an elderly lady got scammed out of Ł10k by some fake Amazon callers, and it was only a second attempt to take another Ł10k is when someone at the bank did stop it. Although it didnt mention if they refunded the first Ł10k.

When you watch some of the stuff on Youtube about online scammers etc, largely relating to "tech call centres" and the likes from mostly India, it is a multi billion ŁŁŁŁ industry for them. And the scammers are utterly despicable with their actions often targeting vulnerable people.

 

For sure, but when buying something of value assume everyone is a lying conman not to be trusted with your hard earned...
How much due diligence can you prove prior to sending money?

 

Well you would think that the bank would check who they are offering there services too.
I understand what your saying but it’s fairly common in my life to move them sort of figures around for goods and or services to fairly unknown people. Yes there was a risk like most things in business and I’m sure it won’t be the last bad apple

 

It’s mad for sure just how on a regular basis it is happening.
Given that the police won’t get involved unless action fraud tell them speaks volume as to how common it is.

 

The starting point for banks is if the customer has authorised the payment its not their liability but can change that if its proven that they weren't guilty of gross misconduct by not doing any checks prior to make the payment but that can take months to resolve.
If the customer hasn't authorised the payment they will refund.

 

Yup, its much easier to go after motorist as the average joe needs the car to get around and has a paper trail to follow to get results.

This is why so many people abroad buying car parts get conned as stuff never turn up.

I got caught by a guy in Gloucester when I was over visiting my wife in America, ended up selling him some US car parts and posting them from America, he then offered me loads more parts so I paid for some parts to be delivered to my parents around 30mins from his where he would get the remainder money. Parts never turned up when they was supposed to, ended up googling the pictures he had sent me as I was sure I'd seen one of them before when I thought about it. He'd stolen pictures off audisrs and google so found out where those came from.

PayPal claim went in with pictures etc. Turns out this guy wasn't too bright as he'd used his sisters paypal account. She started sending me threatening emails and saying how I'd got it all wrong, he was the best of the best etc. Paypal put her account into the minus and refunded me much to her annoyance. I got lucky, in the end I was just out of a bit of time and some postage costs which wasn't too bad, could have been a lot worse.

Put warning ad's up on ebay saying the seller is a scammer, print screen copy of all. Get together all his info you can, put ad's warning about it on Facebook marketplace. Basically just cause him as much hassle as possible until you get a result, same with the banks - contact them again and keep contacting until they know you won't go away. Worth a shot and they will probably say you shouldn't have used bank transfer but at the same time its supposed to be a safe way to transfer money.

 

Let's face it, almost no way is 100% safe. Scammers will always find a way to scam...and get away with it. Because the law will always find a way, to do fuck all about it.

Whilst not directly related to cars...this guys Youtube channel where he combats online scammers is a real eye opened to some of the shit that goes on.

/JimBrowning

 

Well hopefully my banks fraud team will work well, it’s just hard to assume everything when they only have/asked me for what happened on the situation over the phone. Same with action fraud who haven’t asked for photo/messages/screenshot evidence which is a guarantee over verbal evidence.
So i would think the first 45% of the case would be to certify that I’m not trying to fraud them.

 

Much agreed about making lots of noise. I’ll sort some bits out a bit later.
I wonder how unfortunate it would be if his bank details get into the hands of fraudsters

 

Well that would allow them to make payments into his account but nothing else unless you have passwords etc

 

Ooh that’s a bit boring.
Spoke to the fraud team today to give more evidence and a general update and it’s certainly going in the right direction.

 

Was someone not able to set up a direct debit on Clarkson a few years back with such few details ? I'm sure some out there would be able to exploit them somehow.

 

Following the same pattern as our claim, repeated phone calls and messages over the course of a week or so, asking for more details and clarifying things, hopefully will end the same way for you

 

since you have his name, card details and address call his bank up and say you lost the card and ask for it to be blocked