Scammers providing HPI reports on Autotrader UK

I was surprised to receive an HPI report along with the standard photos from the scammer. At first I thought that the HPI report must be 'spoofed' but now I doubt that it is.

Whether the scammer is taking them from the hacked dealer account, or whether he's requesting reports at the dealers' expense is impossible to tell, but the copy I was sent missed out information such as the name of the registered keeper/last known owner which you'd expect to be fundamentally one of the main purposes of requesting it.

The principle being, that if you're dealing with a scammer, then whatever photos and documents he produces, they are of no worth or value whatsoever.

If you haven't seen the vehicle in real life, the risk is, you never will.

HPI checks only 'tell you if the vehicle is currently recorded as stolen, has been written off by an insurance company, is still on finance, or has a mileage discrepancy'. There's no information about ownership - that would be a gross breach of privacy. The scammer could be getting the report as a free sample from various providers, or paying for it with someone else's money. So yes, folks, the car is out there, it just doesn't belong to the person trying to sell it to you...

Thanks for clearing that up for me corsages.

The point is that an HPI check supplied by a seller is a waste of time. The buyer should make his own HPI check, but even then, it won't protect a buyer from the type of scam this hacker is performing.

If you don't view the car, the likelihood is you never will.

The scammer has inventive excuses why you can't see the car and they're all designed to make the buyer pay for a car he doesn't own.