Received an email from Everett of a scam email ....

[Jenng]

and since ad was removed, couldn't review it. I did read the links both to scam emails and also for how to buy over the internet but I had questions I wanted to ask Everett but did not know how to reach him.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2487301

Was it the wording that made it suspicious or did an prospective buyer meet the seller and were there many red flags? If he is the moderator on here, hopefully he can answer that but if a buyer does meet a seller and is suspicious do people post on here? I tried to search on here to see if someone had met this seller or people reporting a bad seller but really couldn't tell from the topics.

Hope someone can answer this..

[EverettB]

If you got an email warning from me saying it was a scam you could have hit reply on that email to contact me.

It's fine to ask here in the Forums though.

They didn't meet the seller - Scams rarely work that way.
They don't have a car to show you.
The scammers only want money.

In this particular case I looked it up and a member reported it.
He had a bad feeling about the ad and he asked me to look at it.
He reported the seller was emailing him from a different email that what was listed in the ad.

The email the seller replied from was [email protected] which I already had banned and listed on the site as a scammer.

So I instantly knew it was a scam ad based on that email address.
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[Jenng]

Thank you for replying. but when the person told you it was only about the money, does that mean seller won't talk with you over the phone, or want you to come and see the car, and just say you need to pay it to get it shipped or discuss details of the car's record?   I will add you to my contacts (I looked under your signature for your email not thinking of seeing in the header where it came from) but will post my questions on the forums first so I won't deluge you with questions and have you regret helping me LQTM!!

[EverettB]

I'm not sure what they did in this case as I don't believe the person talked to them very much or at all and only via email.

From what I have seen in the past they will talk to you over the phone or via text. They try to communicate mostly via text now as they are often foreign sounding* and this gives them away as African or other non-native speaking English scammers.

You can't come see the car, there's nothing to see as they don't own it.
They will often give you their address but it's fake.
From what I have seen in the past, they often use a house that was recently for sale as when I searched on the addresses people have given me it came up on Zillow as recently sold or for sale.
They will discuss the car but I'm not sure what level of detail they can provide as I haven't gotten a lot of specifics from people who reported ads.
Unfortunately the people who reported ads are the ones who catch it as a scam ad and they usually catch on fairly quickly.
The people that have gotten scammed, either from sending a deposit or sending the full price, often don't give me much detail.
I don't want to blame them at all but I believe a number of those people who got scammed sent money without every getting more photos or detail or even talking to the seller on the phone.
This seems insane to me(!) but it happens.

If you are inquiring on a car and asking for more detail and specific photos and speak on the phone with the seller you are in a very good position.
Obviously a scammer cannot provide additional detail or specific photos on a car they do not own.

More info:
It's fine to post any questions here - it might help others.

If you have questions about a specific ad or seller, it's usually best to email me directly with a link to the ad so I can check it out.


* "Foreign sounding" = description I've gotten from potential buyers
_________________
How to Post Photos
Everett Barnes - [email protected] | My wanted ads
"Water is the only drink for a wise man" | "Communication prevents complaints"
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!