RAY MASSEY: Steer clear of scams! Criminals targeting motorists

Criminals are targeting cash-strapped motorists with bogus online adverts for temptingly cheap used cars that don’t exist, motor industry experts have warned. 

Conmen behind used car scams are setting up fictitious web-based ‘sham dealership’ websites, luring victims in with cut-price deals, then seeking to convince car buyers to pay for the phantom vehicles over the phone. 

One victim was snared by a social media advert for a 2016 Mini Countryman worth £10,000, but advertised for just £3,870. Details of the alleged frauds were revealed this week by the respected Car Dealer Magazine website (­cardealermagazine.co.uk). 

It says scammers, believed to be based abroad, but purporting to have dealerships in Scotland, are creating bogus social media adverts to target potential car buyers, especially in London and the Home Counties, betting it’s unlikely they will travel hundreds of miles to check the cars out in person. But experts say it is spreading rapidly around the country. 

Car Dealer Magazine editor and founder James Baggott said: ‘Using fake websites, sometimes cloning the names and details of legitimate car dealerships, the criminals use a confidence con to part unsuspecting buyers from their cash.’ 

Scammers told one potential buyer that they would have to pay for the used car in full before delivery: ‘I saw the advert on social media for a car that was incredibly cheap so I wanted to snap up the deal. 

‘They asked for a full payment and said they would deliver it to me.’ It was only when the victim checked the bogus dealership’s name online that they spotted earlier warnings by Car Dealer Magazine and walked away. Legitimate dealerships have reported ‘­hundreds’ of car buyers turning up from the South who’d paid for phantom cars.

Mr Baggott said: ‘Other firms told of families travelling to remote Scottish towns with their children to pick up cars, only to find out when they got there, the cars didn’t exist.’

One victim was snared by a social media advert for a 2016 Mini Countryman (same model pictured) worth £10,000, but advertised for just £3,870

One legitimate dealer said of victims who had turned up looking for bogus dealers: ‘Many have paid deposits and are coming to look at a car that doesn’t exist. Some come all the way from London to see cars that aren’t there.’

A victim who had a close escape said: ‘The salesman I spoke to said there was ‘no need to see it’ as all the details were in the advert.

Car Dealer Magazine’s James Baggott

‘It was only because he was so pushy about me paying the money in advance that I got suspicious and googled their name.

Car Dealer Magazine’s Mr Baggott said that his team had already reported one firm to the police and motor industry fraud investigators after reports of the con first surfaced at the start of October.

Consumer experts said car buyers should think very carefully before paying a deposit for a car they haven’t seen.

Derren Martin of used-car pricing experts CAP HPI said: ‘From what we have seen on these criminals’ websites and the adverts they write, the cars are usually 60 per cent less than what they should be advertised at.

‘That should ring alarm bells with consumers as if a deal is too good to be true it usually is.’

Sandy Burgess, chief executive of the Scottish Motor Trade Association, told the trade journal: ‘It is unfortunate that these con men are preying on the general public who are being lured by the cheap prices and then failing to make the basic checks on the dealers concerned which ultimately leads to financial losses.’