CAR BUYERS and sellers have been warned about two new forms of scams in which criminals attempt to get people to part with their money or their financial details.
In one scam, a would-be car seller attempts to get buyers to part with half the purchase price before shipping the car to Ireland. In the second, people selling their second-hand cars have been targeted by scammers attempting to gain access to their bank account information.
The Gardaí have been made aware of both forms of scam by members of the public and some of the leading car sales websites, but the problem keeps resurfacing under new guises, according to Brian Neville, customer services manager of Car Buyer Guide. "The authorities are aware but I don't think they're having much luck. All we can do is try to block the e-mail addresses."
Leah Cullen contacted The Irish Times about a 2001 Honda Integra she saw advertised for sale in Cork on Car Buyers Guide and Autotrader websites for €7,190. She reckoned this was a good €10,000 cheaper than the average for this model and year.
When she contacted the seller, she was told he had moved with his family to Spain and was trying to sell the car in Ireland because it was right-hand drive and no-one would want to buy it in Spain.
The seller said he wanted to close the deal through eBay "so we can both be protected" and asked her to remit a 50 per cent down payment to eBay where the money would be kept "in hold (sic)".
Smelling a rat, Cullen sent him an e-mail asking whether this was a scam. The affronted seller replied that he was 52 years old and not some "young boy" out to pull a scam. All he wanted, he said, was money for his family.
The Irish Times attempted to contact the seller in this case, via the e-mail address used, but not surprisingly perhaps, no reply was received.
eBay Ireland told us it offers no such service as described by the seller. It says buyers should see a car before purchasing it and shouldn't send payments by money order, but should transfer money using the PayPal service. The company said it had contacted the leading car sales websites about the matter.
Leah Cullen's prospective purchase went no further, but Neville says other car buyers haven't been so lucky. In one recent case, he says a man sent €2,500 overseas using Western Union to buy a second-hand BMW and hasn't heard anything since. "He knew it was dodgy but he just wanted the car so much."
The cases above are just the latest forms of scams practised on unsuspecting consumers using the internet to buy or sell cars.
Up to now, the best known scam involves car matching services provided by unscrupulous agents who extort money from genuine sellers through promises, which turn out to be bogus, to find them buyers for their cars.
Over the past few years, a number of companies have been accused of attempting to defraud people by offering to match them, for a fee, with parties interested in buying their used car. Invariably, no buyer is found for the car and the seller loses the fee paid, according to the European Consumer Centre in Dublin.
The centre says that it received 169 complaints against four different UK-based companies offering a vehicle matching service last year. Typically, the fee charged was about €115.
In the scam, an Irish person who has a car for sale, advertised on a legitimate website or in a magazine, is contacted by one of the companies offering to match the car to a buyer. Complainants reported being told that the car was guaranteed to sell or that the company would continue matching it with potential buyers until it was sold.
"Inevitably, a buyer is not found, and when consumers complain they are referred to the terms and conditions on the companies' website. These state that there is no guarantee that a buyer will be found and so the consumer is refused a refund," according to the consumer centre's annual report.
The centre says that it has been "impossible" to resolve these disputes amicably. The advice of both eBay and Car Buyers Guide in relation to all these scams comes down to the old adage: "If something seems too good to be true, then it usually is".