QUESTION: I was a recent victim of an Internet car buying scam. If you have any advice, help or comments please contact me back.

June 23, 2006

Hello Tony

I was a recent victim of an Internet car buying scam. My previous car (05 GMC Yukon) was stolen and I was looking to replace it with the same. I searched several used car websites such as autotrader.com, craigslist.com, and carsoup.com.

I found a car on carsoup that seemed like a deal too good to be true. It ended up it was, but at the time I was still angry that my previous car was stolen so I was looking to get the most for my dollar.

Anyway, I contacted the seller who said that she had recently moved to London from the US and because of British laws (which may or may not exist) she was going to have to pay an extra fee in order to be able to drive her American car over there. Her reason was that because the steering wheel is on the opposite side, she was going to be charged an extra fee.

She suggested that we use a third party shipping service as a way of holding my money until I received the vehicle. The site was www.emvmovers.com which has since been shut down.

At the time I ran a search on the company and I didn't get anything back negative, and I did a CARFAX Record Check on the car and it came back fine too. I went ahead and wired her the money, $12,800 USD to a British bank called NatWest.

Normally it takes about 5 to 6 days for an international wire transfer to be completed and while it was in the process of transferring I decided to do a search on the car's VIN. Something just compelled me to do this and actually quite a few listings came up.

The first was an eBay listing that was for the same vehicle but I thought that maybe she had tried to eBay it before she moved, but something seemed wrong. I checked the seller and it was a GMC dealership in Georgia and I figured maybe that is where she moved to London from.

I went back to the Google search results and the next one was a current listing from the dealership of the vehicle. That really gave me the idea that something was wrong. I contacted the dealership and they said that the vehicle was still on their lot.

I then contacted both banks, mine and the recipient's bank. The recipient's bank in England said that they were unable to do anything because they had confidentiality to their account holders. My bank, UBOC, said that they would contact their wire department and try to get my money back.

While all this was going on, I took a closer look at the eBay listing and realized that the VIN is given right there and not only that, but the pictures that I had initially seen on carsoup were the same ones that were on this eBay listing.

Basically what this criminal did was just copy the pictures and take the VIN from this listing and made a completely fraudulent listing of an actual vehicle.

This is why when I ran a CarFax on the vehicle it came back clean, because it was a legit vehicle. It just was never in England.

So basically now I have not received my money back and have come to terms that I never will. It just really has been the biggest and worst thing that has happened to me financially, not only am out of a car now, but my insurance money that I received is stolen.

I am a grad student who is engaged and we now are going to have to push our wedding back because of this financial loss I have taken. If you have any advice/help/comments please contact me back.

I know that I am probably just going to be another statistic, but hopefully if enough people come forward and admit they have been scammed, then maybe one or all of these crooks will be taken down and put away where they belong.

Thank you for your time and help,

Answer:

Hi John,

Wow!

This is a very familiar scenario that I have run into four or five times now. It's always someone in England and the deal is usually too good to be true (Big Red Flag).

The only thing I can suggest is to contact the FBI. Perhaps they can follow it up internationally as a fraud case. Chances are, even if they track down the culprit your money is long gone.

A very expensive lesson for you. Hopefully, some people will read this and avoid becoming victims themselves.

All my very best...

Tony Iorio