Vehicle Sales
(car, truck, trailer)
Consumers
should be aware of an ongoing fraud scam that involves the
sales of vehicles. The scammers are advertising in newspapers,
bargain magazines and legitimate on-line sites such as Kijiji,
auto-trader or Craig's List. The vehicles are listed as good
condition for an unbelievable low price. The use of online
payment companies (i.e. EBay / PayPal / Yahoo payments) is
mocked or spoofed and a money transfer company like Western
Union or Money Gram has to be used.
In
order to avoid this type of scam remember the following general
words of advice:
- Know who you are dealing with,
independently confirm your seller's name, street address
and telephone number;
- If the car, truck or trailer
is too good of a deal - then it IS too good of a
deal. You may be getting scammed. Is
it reasonable for a person to sell a high-end vehicle for
so little money? (Scammers may use many excuses such
as the vehicle was an inheritance, an emergency "sell
off" to pay for medical expenses, a divorce situation
and the new owner does not drive)
- Never agree to wire funds
to a seller – a legitimate seller will not pressure you
to use a money transfer company only.
- Resist
pressure to “act now.” If the seller wants to use a service
you have not heard of, be sure to check out its reliability.
- Scammers
use free e-mail addresses to hide behind – hotmail.com /
g-mail.com / google.com / yahoo.com / 8U8.com / rocketmail.com
/ msn.com.
- Out
of country sellers
- Use
your computer– it is an excellent tool to research your
potential purchase
Any of the above
alerts alone does not mean you are dealing with a scammer,
but as your list gets larger your concern should as well.
Remember, once you have wired your hard earned cash to a scammer,
you will never get it back.
Be
sure to protect yourself by reading the warnings posted on
some of these online sites such as;
Auto
Trader
Kijiji
Craigslist
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List
of Scams
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