Craigslist eBay Fraud – Buying a Car
Filed under Rants
One of my friends brought this story to my attention when he checked out Craigslist to purchase a car.
The First e-mail
From: “emma4jefferson@msn.com”
First of all I want to thank you for your interest for my 2003 Toyota Tacoma Double Cab SR5,automatic transmission,silver.
Only 89,500 miles,beautiful condition in and out. Paint shines ,zero dings/dents,no accident.
Non-smoker,always garaged and covered.
It comes with all the documents needed for registration and clear title.
I sell it at this price($2,740.00 ) because I have been divorced recently and i don’t have driver license.
Now the truck is in my property and as a woman i don’t need it. This truck is in excellent working conditions, no scratches, flaws or any kind of damage, slightly used in 100% working and looking conditions and comes with a clear title.
From the beginning you have to know that for the payment I request only secure pay, I prefer the payment to be done using eBay services.
We will use a safe payment method because I am affiliated at eBay and I have a purchase protection account for $20,000.00
The final price that I want for this truck is $2,740.00 including shipping and handling.
If you are interested in buying it please provide me your full name and address so I can initiate the deal through eBay.
I will wait your answer very soon.
Emma Jefferson
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Editor’s note: It’s rather obvious this person doesn’t speak English as a first language according to their writing style. Red flag? Perhaps. Also, it’s my experience that when people have stories about why they’re getting rid of something in such good condition at a dirt-cheap price, they’re usually full of shit.
Author’s note: We asked to test drive the vehicle and for the VIN to run CARFAX.
The Second e-mail
From: “emmajeffercson@msn.com”
Author’s note: (notice, different email address)
I’m sorry to disappoint you but the car is already at the shipping company in Orlando, Florida sealed and ready for the shipping.
I have a contract with eBay so this deal must go through them.
I’m very busy with my job and I’m getting off the town so I can’t meet in person with you so this is the reason why I chose to sell my car over the internet.
According with the eBay you have 5 days from the time you receive the car to inspect it and decide if you want to keep it or not.
If you want to buy it please email me your full name and address for shipping so I can initiate the transaction through eBay.
After that they will contact you for all necessary information about this transaction
(terms,buyer protection,payment instructions,invoice,etc.)
Thank you
VIN Number: 5TEHN72NX3Z166407
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Editor’s note: Again, the broken English. And “according with the eBay” strikes me as odd.
Author’s note: We ran CARFAX and the vehicle does indeed exist.
We asked for the title and registration and for her eBay username.
The Third e-mail
From: “emmajeffercson@msn.com”
Glad we can do business. I’ll start the registration process with Ebay and you will receive the information you need from them shortly, via email.
VIN Number: 5TEHN72NX3Z166407
The Invoice
The Listing
Price and Shipping Info
The Fourth e-mail
Author’s note: Received this email from “motors@contact-ebay-live.com”, reply-to “motors@ebaycheckout-inc.com”
Case ID: 65B4T137L3W13
Dear Customer,
Please tell me if you have received the invoice for payment. Once we receive the fax from you that will include the payment details as explained above, we will instruct the seller to start the shipping process. We will hold the payment until you send us your confirmation that you are satisfied with the product you received. As soon as we receive your confirmation we will release the payment to the seller. You will receive further details regarding the shipping process (courier information, tracking method, expected delivery date) after the payment confirmation.
*NOTE It may occur that your e-mail doesn’t support HTML language and that is why you haven’t received the invoice from us. Please check your bulk/junk/spam/ messages, the invoice may have ended there because of the ever increasing filters of the e-mails nowdays.
Sincerely,
Michael Kennell
eBay Safe Harbor
Customer Specialist
The Red Flags
Obviously, the broken English (at least for me) was a huge red flag. The second was the sob story regarding why the truck was selling for so cheap.
Secondly, the seller claimed the truck was on her property, but stated later that it was moved to a warehouse.
The final red flag was that payment was required through Western Union.
For the invoice and final e-mail, the messages were forwarded to spoof@ebay.com. eBay confirmed that both e-mails were in fact fraudulent.
Lessons Learned
Be careful. If you receive any official correspondence, be sure to check the “from” and “reply-to” headers in your email.
If you are unsure of the e-mail, send the e-mail to the business’s anti-fraud division. In eBay’s case, it is spoof@ebay.com.
Related posts:
May28
June 1, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Yep, this is a scam.
And just so you know, all offers to sell and ship a car to you – especially one at a great price – are always scams.
Also, any stranger requesting payment through Western Union is running a scam. Western Union is a cash courier service based on only trust on both ends. The assumption is that you trust the person on the other end – why else would you be sending him thousands of dollars? Once they have their hands on you money you have no recourse. Western Union can do nothing for you – they did exactly as you requested – they sent you money to the person on the other end of the wire.
June 2, 2010 at 5:40 pm
i have had a similer experaince with craigs list witch i will go into greater detail on my blog … but the basics are the buyer wanted me to hand over the product to a “hadler” and once that happened they would send money
yea ok
June 6, 2010 at 8:04 am
Its a little worrying that the handling of such a seller on ebay is so poor! The worst part about it, is the fact that other ebay sellers such as myself get a really bad reputation and will ultimately lead to drop in sales for us!
Its not fair i tell you!
June 6, 2010 at 9:30 am
Donovan,
And any time there is profit to be made fraud is not far behind.
eBay is pretty much an open market and by design they do minimum to police sellers. They rely on buyers to do this for them.
I used to sell on eBay but stopped a long time ago because their costs are too high.
June 9, 2010 at 7:43 pm
I disagree about public auctions. We used to attend public auctions looking for lower cost cars to resell and we discovered pretty quickly that anything decent on the low end sold for way more than we could buy from private owners. The problem is the “public” brings their wallets and then they bid against each other, driving cars prices up.
Once bidding got to the 5K and above range prices tended to flatten out and we could buy deals. But dealers tended to wholesale these cars so they were few and far between.
June 11, 2010 at 2:09 pm
As the author of this post I want to point out that, yes, I am aware that this is a scam.
The point in writing up this post and asking Ron to post it is to put the scam online “permanently” (as permanently as anything else online). I found a thread on a forum that had pretty much the same scam email, but no actual resolution along the lines of “yes, this is a scam”. Plus, with the VIN posted, this scam should be useless with this particular vehicle (assuming the one being scammed can do a web search).
On a side note, a little defense of eBay (@Donovan Bell). Although this seller claimed to work through eBay, they never sent me an eBay username to check up on. In other words, this doesn’t reflect poorly on eBay managing sellers (since the person isn’t a real seller), besides the fact that they are a large, popular (or were at one point) auction website that scammers can try to leverage indirectly. And eBay did respond promptly to my emails to them asking if the “eBay” emails were fraudulent.
Troy
June 16, 2010 at 6:51 pm
It’s a scam… I am in the middle of the emails that the previous poster discussed. I figure that the car must be all set to go by the end of this week
June 20, 2010 at 1:41 am
Ain’t this about a bucket of bull. I was about to buy a 2005 Nissan from this women, and her emails say the samething. She said her name was Katharine Newton. This post really helped me alot. Thanks.
June 21, 2010 at 7:21 pm
wow…….i’m also actually in the middle of email with a 2003 taco in FL. I was indeed skeptical, but after reading this post. I’m 100% sure that it’s a fake sale now. Thanks a bunch for the heads up.
June 24, 2010 at 8:23 am
I have been trying to purchase a vehicle for my 16 year old when I spotted a great deal yesterday on Kijiji for a 2000 Chevy Silverado for $2900. The lady selling the truck emailed me back last night and said the reason for such a “cheap” price is that she is recently divorced and she has 2 kids.
She also said the truck is already at a shipping company that will ship the truck at her expense and payment is expected thru Ebay.
Does this sound to good to be true? Do you think this is a scam? I was really hoping I found a good vehicle for my kid at a price I could afford. Am not sure what to do now.
Your comments are greatly appreciated. Thank you.
June 24, 2010 at 7:20 pm
The lady’s divorced, hinted that she really needs the money because she has 2 kids and yet she can afford to have the truck staged at a shipping company just because she knows someone on-line will buy the truck?
Also, the truck will be shipped at her expense – a expense that could easily double if the buyer lives on the other side of the country????????
Run away from this one and don’t look back – it’s a scam!!!!
June 30, 2010 at 7:56 pm
It’s a good thing that you brought this topic. I agree that this one is scam. But there are still a lot of people that sells cars at very decent prices over the internet. Sometimes price ranges from 4k-5k USD are not scam. But 2.7K is just another story.
July 12, 2010 at 12:45 pm
I had something like thay happend to me once. I never followed through with it though, but I did play along for awhile to get a few laughs out of it. Turns out the guy wanted me to send hime 3,000 dollars and my car. Then send me a $20,000 check. For a $6,000 car? Well turns out he was a scammer from Nigeria, Africa…
July 12, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Heres another one that I just got last week:
Hello,
My name is Lisa Karen and I’m glad to see your interest in purchasing my car.Sorry for delay right now i m in Spain at the hospital because I’m deaf and i sell this car because i have the opportunity to do a surgery that could bring me back my hearing. I am already in a desperate financial situation and i took a second job as a text editor so i can get more income hoping i will raise the needed amount for the surgery.
What can I tell you in a few words is that I am an individual seller, I am not a dealer and this is my first type of action on internet. I have a clear title and it is on my name.
The car that I have for selling is mine , it is personal property and I am going to sell it for this price $4,000.00.obo because i need the money urgently to bring me back my hearing.
It is in good condition,there are no scratches or any dents on it,very well maintained.I have a clear title for it, no liens or loans.
Also about payment and shipping(which is free of charge for you) I will use only eBay vehicle protection program so we can both be protected.I am affiliated at eBay and I have a purchase protection account for $20.000
Thank you
Lisa Karen
July 12, 2010 at 7:48 pm
These story’s would be funny if so many did not fall for them.
July 13, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Wow this is all so wierd, I am also in a similar situation, as soon as things started getting way to good to be true I figured it would be best to look and see if there were any scam examples and sure enough..theres a lot. Thank you for posting this, It does make me upset that people do that because at first things seemed like they were going great and I figured that I would be able to purchase this truck that I really wanted. Everything made sense except he said his wife worked for a shipping company that would ship the truck for free which was okay with me until he mentioned that he needed a down payment on ebay. Then I gave him my info and he contacted “ebay” and they sent me an invoice saying that I had to use western union and then send the money to ebay from western union. Then he would send the car down to me for me to inspect it, sound like a scam? I called him out on it and he said that he had no idea why they did that, which made me really skeptical because I thought the whole point of ebay was to use paypal because it is more secure…am I right or is this not a scam? And this is the email i recieved from ebaymotors when I emailed them
Dear Mr. Harrison,
Thank you for contacting eBay Motors.
As you can see in the invoice, you are making a deposit which will only be released to the seller after you receive the product, inspect it and authorize us to release your payment to the seller. If by any reason, you won’t be satisfied with the car you will get a total refund. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to accept PayPal at eBay Motors Vehicle Purchase program because of the large number of frauds. We accept only Western Union because it’s much safer.
So all you need to do is go the nearest Western Union office and make the transfer for your invoice. After that do not forget to reply with the MTCN transfer number Western Union will give you, sender firs name and sender last name so we can confirm your payment. After this, yes you will just wait few days for the car to arrive at your address stipulated in the invoice. Please keep the receipt from Western Union until the transaction is completed because that will be the proof of your payment.
Hope everything is clear for you now Mr. Harrison, but if you have any other questions feel free to ask us.
Best Regards,
Paul Wilson – eBay Motors Sales Agent
So please comment and tell me if you think I am making a right decision when I say that this is a scam? Im just trying not to get screwed.
July 13, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Hi Harrison,
This is totally a typical scam. Ask them if you can go to the shipping company and have a look at the vehicle………for sure they will have another excuse.
This has happened to me 3 times in about 1 month. They always say they will ship the vehicle at their expense. Last week I was inquiring about a 2005 VW Golf for $4000 (see previous comment) and the “seller” said they would ship me the car from MADRID SPAIN and I live way up north in MANITOBA CANADA, the cost of shipping would be way more then what I was supposed to pay for the car.
I learned not to buy anything unless you can personally look at it and take it for a test drive.
So glad you didn’t get scammed cause theres no way you would get your money back.
Leanne
July 25, 2010 at 11:17 am
Thank you so much for this blog. I found two cars and had similiar stories. One was how her son died in Iraq and couldnt look at the car anymore, and another needing to sell their only asset to pay off their mortgage (for a mere $2,950, including shipping as her husband works for DAS). The first one sounded more believable, but I refuse to give my personal address to strangers. And I never heard back from them. Thanks again for confirming my suspicions.