Craigslist, Ebay and other online buying/selling scams.
#179340 by JOHN GB Tue Oct 22, 2013 6:21 pm
I am currently listing a car on autotrader and have received a few scam emails but today, I received a text with an offer to buy the car at almost the asking price but I had to go to the website www.product-autotrader.com and enter a purchase id which had been included in the text. The offer was valid for 24hrs and they would come and assess the condition of the car and if acceptable, pay cash. Checked out the website and there are several things which stick out. I couldn't find any review or mention of the website other than the actual website, the contact address is a p.o.box
Anyone have info on them?
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#179343 by TerranceBoyce Tue Oct 22, 2013 6:43 pm
Still digging - do not touch.

New scam we haven't seen before.

product-autotrader.com
Registrar Info
Name GODADDY.COM, LLC
Whois Server whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL http://registrar.godaddy.com
Status clientDeleteProhibited, clientRenewProhibited, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited
Important Dates
Expires On October 20, 2014
Registered On October 20, 2013
Updated On October 20, 2013
Name Servers
ns63.domaincontrol.com 216.69.185.42
ns64.domaincontrol.com 208.109.255.42
Site Status
IP Address 160.153.0.27
Status View Site
Server Type Apache
Traffic Info
Raw Registrar Data
Domain Name: PRODUCT-AUTOTRADER.COM
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Registrant Name: Registration Private
Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC
Name Server: NS63.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS64.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Domain Name: PRODUCT-AUTOTRADER.COM
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Registrant Name: Registration Private
Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC

Name Server: NS63.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS64.DOMAINCONTROL.COM


I bet it'll involve you making a payment first. :D

I read Terms and Conditions like peanuts.

We also reserve the right to cancel a purchase of any vehicle due to mitigating circumstances


An offer is worthless then.

The sale is final once the car and the sale of the car has been verified as genuine.


Meaningless, undefined waffle.

We may request a fully refundable appointment deposit.


There it is and you betcha they will.

They want your money, not your car.

On a point of law, T's and Cs should define who the parties to any contract are and, on the presumption that you know who you are, the website doesn't define who it is and a website isn't a party with whom you can form a contract and under UK law any website should show who the company is behind the site and detail certain specific information if it is an incorporated company, such as its registered office and company number.

If someone wishes to form a contract with you, then logically they must identify who they are, otherwise no binding contract can ever be formed.

Don't touch it.

Autotrader customers are going to get blitzed with this scam you can be certain. I don't suppose they'll be pleased it's using their name.

Grammar/spelling errors on website

If your happy with our Guaranteed best cash price offer then click on 'Accept Offer'.


In most cases we will offer near asking price if your cars what we are looking for. If your wondering how we make our profit - its in the finance deal with the new owner.


I could make a profit with a dollar for every missing apostrophe. :laugh-s:

I hate to depress them too much, but the FREEPOST address they quote is also highly implausible and not in the correct format.

FREEPOST 2081, London. W7 3YJ


It looks as if they've taken the site down all of a sudden :lol: but I've still got it on my screen and I'll take copies.

I bet this is going to become a very widespread scam offer, and the speed with which the site was taken may suggest that they aren't ready just yet to blitz all ad sites - but they will.

CAR ADVERTS - If a car seller mentions escrow - he's scamming you Never ever for any reason pay anything until you have seen and inspected the vehicle
#179351 by TerranceBoyce Tue Oct 22, 2013 8:41 pm
Advice from Autotrader

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/advice/2013/03/safety-and-security/avoiding-fraudulent-buyers

Fraudulent Car Buying Companies.

Sellers will receive a text message from a company offering to buy your vehicle for a reasonable price. Sellers are then invited to go online and enter their vehicle details.

You will then receive an email with your valuation asking you follow a link to a website. You will be asked to fill in your details so the company can collect the vehicle. You will be advised that a “refundable” deposit will have to be paid via a Pay Point to complete the sale.

You are told that you will receive the refund on collection of your vehicle. The reality is no one will collect your car and you will not get your money back.

CAR ADVERTS - If a car seller mentions escrow - he's scamming you Never ever for any reason pay anything until you have seen and inspected the vehicle
#179361 by TerranceBoyce Wed Oct 23, 2013 3:55 am
With a little research I have discovered that this scam has been run before earlier this year.

I have some fascination with the manner in which scammers try to find new scamming methods and how they operate. Obviously if anyone ever reaches the stage when they're told to make payment we'd be fascinated to know details of how and where the victim is told to send the money, as that appears to be the major problem facing the criminal with this scam. Using personal accounts to launder payments is neither go to be credible nor economic, and Paypoint doesn't seem to be appropriate.

Undoubtedly scammers are having to be much more cautious with the ads they post nowadays as the more outrageous ones get jumped on and scrubbed much more quickly and, having to make their ads more sensible, undoubtedly they get less 'bites' than they did. This being the case it's therefore tempting to make use of a method that involves the scammer contacting the target rather than waiting for the victim to contact the scammer. The drawback to doing this is that money laundering bank accounts are going to get 'burned' and shut down at a much higher rate using this method, as the risk of getting reported without ever receiving any payment is much higher.

I speculate that the scammers posting the ads aren't those who shepherd the money laundering accounts, and are much less likely to worry about whether the accounts get 'burned' because without 'bites' they don't get paid.

Conclusion - this possibly suggests that they aren't as successful as they used to be.

A little more research. These are the five domains reported to have been used so far. There will be more.

buynow-autotrader.com
product-autotrader.com
gb-autotrader.com
gbautotrader.com
offers-autotrader.com
myac-autotrader.com
buy-autotrader.com
group-autotrader.com


Apparently the amount they ask for is £50 which seems to suggest that they may be using a payment method like UKASH which should immediately set alarm bells ringing as there's no means to use UKASH on their websites. The scam is fundamentally flawed which is not to say that the scammers won't try and won't catch some victims.
Last edited by TerranceBoyce on Sat Oct 26, 2013 9:53 am, edited 9 times in total.

CAR ADVERTS - If a car seller mentions escrow - he's scamming you Never ever for any reason pay anything until you have seen and inspected the vehicle
#179363 by zydra30 Wed Oct 23, 2013 4:13 am
hi, yes I also received same text yesterday. did not pay £50 because somehow doesn't sound real that someone will come and buy car for nearly asking price and give me cash. and now I found this website :)
#179366 by TerranceBoyce Wed Oct 23, 2013 4:24 am
Welcome to Scamwarners zydra30.

Glad to know you avoided being scammed and thanks for taking the trouble to call and tell us. It looks as if this could be about to be blitzed to as many people as the scammers can.

CAR ADVERTS - If a car seller mentions escrow - he's scamming you Never ever for any reason pay anything until you have seen and inspected the vehicle
#179368 by TerranceBoyce Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:01 am
Welcome to Scamwarners jpBristol.

There's now a specific warning on Autotraders about this scam.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/articles/2013/10/cars/important-security-announcement-please-read

It's nice to hear you avoided being scammed too, and I have doubts this scam is going to have a high success rate, but that may only drive the scammer on to pumping the volumes up. Ironically he'll be attempting to scam a lot of scammers too who post fake ads. :lol:

We'd be seriously interested to know how the scammer tries to get payment if anyone gets to that stage, as it would be that much easier to close him down if that's known.

A little more research turns up that it is UKASH payments between £50 and £100 the scammer is after and he wants the details sent to him by e-mail.

CAR ADVERTS - If a car seller mentions escrow - he's scamming you Never ever for any reason pay anything until you have seen and inspected the vehicle
#179374 by Warthog1 Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:13 am
Have found out (to my regret) that this was a scam recently!
They ask you to go to a UK PayPoint store and ask for a 'PaySafe Card UK' (this is not an unusual action as some online stores require these to transfer money to them).
Once you've obtained the card by paying the store, you receive a receipt with a 16 digit PIN number printed on it. You are then asked to enter that PIN into their online booking system in order to make an appointment for their local rep to contact you, and it will give you the local contact number.
After I'd done this it simply said they were unable to recognise the PIN code immediately and someone would call to confirm the appointment time...which, of course, never happens!
If you call the telephone number listed on their website you receive a recorded message asking you to contact the number supplied for the local rep...which was never given - then disconnects you!
Great scam...and feel a right fool. Shouldn't be so desparate to sell my car!!!!!!!! :(
#179376 by TerranceBoyce Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:20 am
Welcome to Scamwarners Warthog1 and I'm sorry to hear that they got you.

Can you tell me where you entered the details ? Was it on a website and do you recall the website address ?

I'm pretty certain that this is a UK based criminal and I know where he got his website wording from ? :wink:

These criminals don't fully understand quite the seriousness of what they're doing. They're masquerading as a global company to defraud their customers and drive them away in a mass spam campaign and, if they're located in the UK, they won't last long doing it.

CAR ADVERTS - If a car seller mentions escrow - he's scamming you Never ever for any reason pay anything until you have seen and inspected the vehicle
#179425 by TerranceBoyce Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:29 pm
This scam has been running quite a while and it's interesting to see how they run it.

i think that the scammers realise that if they run the scam for any length of time and at too extreme a level, they'll bring autotrader down on them, lose their websites and alert everyone to what they're doing. So they're running this scam periodically backed up with spam runs and only keep the supporting websites up long enough to pick up as many victims as they can, and then shut everything down, like a smash and grab raid. They hope to be in and out before anyone really gets aim on their websites and tactics, so they tripped up this time, but they'll run it again when the dust settles and this thread will reduce the number of likely victims.

CAR ADVERTS - If a car seller mentions escrow - he's scamming you Never ever for any reason pay anything until you have seen and inspected the vehicle
#179597 by Warthog1 Fri Oct 25, 2013 3:44 pm
I have also received an email from [email protected] asking if my car was still for sale.

After confirming to him that it was, he sent a reply saying he'd been approved for a loan to purchase the car but had seen it on another site listed at a lower price and asked me to confirm if it was my car.

(this is the URL link: http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/ ... 8698645256)

It looks just like the autotrader log-in page but when you log into your account you receive an 'update your credit card on file' screen which is obviously an attempt to obtain your CC details!

Can we report this to Autotrader and Comcast as fraudulent use of their website/copyright etc?
#192169 by frederick1956 Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:01 am
i am selling a car and i received almost same offer
from "new-autotrader.com"
i am sure it is a scam. the website looks dodgy
and they require advance payment for the visit by some type of cash card voucher that you have to purchase at your local store
and i guess this is so the funds cant be traced to them
if you pay the 70 pound fee you will never hear from them again

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