Sarah.....

If you're planning to buy a vehicle that you haven't seen first from any ad site, and you're given a Barclays account in to which to pay the funds, then don't risk it.

The sad thing is I googled "Evelyn Hudson" but not her address before I committed to buying a Nissan Navara for £3500. I've only found this website after Autotrader got in touch and warned me it was most likely a fraudulent website. Too late - farewell summer holiday.

The details were of an Evelyn Hudson as the seller. I agreed to pay through ebay motors - the site looked completely genuine. The ebay account was in the name of Jacek Bucholc, sort code: 20-89-15, account number 40094420. A Barclays account.

I'm so embarrassed!

Welcome to Scamwarners sucker66,

Please post the email address and the emails sent to you. Please remove your personal information.

Welcome to Scamwarners sucker66 and I regret to hear what's happened to you.

Any business, whether it's an ad site, a romance site or a bank, if it allows itself to be overrun with scammers, it won't be in business for long. It may sound dramatic but it's a matter of survival of the fittest and any business that doesn't protect its customers doesn't provide a service of value.

I don't know whether or not these businesses understand this, or perhaps they can do nothing to stop it, but businesses that can do what they can't will flourish. The greater problem is that businesses who can't manage the problem will become the natural home to scammers and fraudsters, and the harm to their reputation will be immense and irrevocable.

Welcome to Scamwarners sucker66,

Please post the email address and the emails sent to you. Please remove your personal information.

The email address used was: [email protected]

The email ref the car was a cut & paste from earlier reports in this thread:

" Immaculate condition, no damages, nothing to worry about. All necessary documents available. My current location is Scotland due to my work commitments, If this is going to be a quick sale I will let it go for £3,500 delivered at my costs. Are you familiar to eBay? I will list the nissan navara on eBay Motors for the £3,500 buy it now price and I will send you a link to my auction, so you can buy it immediate.

As soon as you will confirm the payment to eBay, I will proceed delivery without any additional costs for you.

In case you are not familiar with them, please read their Buyer Protection and will see that they cover 100% the transaction done through them up to £50,000. You will receive the the nissan navara with all the documents. As you know eBay is the best company of online transactions. If indeed interested in it and have the funds, I will list it on eBay, as I have a 100% positive feedback with them."

Another email talked me through ebay buyer protection:

"Due to my location and since view is not an option I have requested personal support and I was approved to use Buyer Protection Program. Here is how the process works through the Buyer Protection Program:

- I make the private listing on eBay for you,
- you go and buy it through their website,
- you have to pay for the item to eBay to secure the funds,
- they confirm me that they received the funds,
- I deliver the car,
- you receive the car,
- they send me the money,

Everything is covered by eBay. I will get paid only after you confirm that you received the car in good order."

The site matched ebay motors almost perfectly; only checking back I noticed all of the links were "contact us" which would presumably take me back to "Evelyn's" email rather than ebay. The real site has more diverse links than this... I don't use ebay often enough to have noticed first time.

This person has just tried to con me out of £3,500 for a boat being sold on boatsandoutboards.co.uk. They used the email address of [email protected]. They refused to let me see the boat before buying, and this is the email he/she sent....

Due to my location and since view or pick up is not an option I have requested personal support and I was approved to use Buyer Protection Program. Here is how the process works through the Buyer Protection Program:


- I make the private listing on eBay for you,
- you go and buy it through their website,
- you have to pay for the item to eBay to secure the funds,
- they confirm me that they received the funds,
- I deliver the boat,
- you receive the boat,
- they send me the money,


Everything is covered by eBay. I will get paid only after you confirm that you received the boat in good order.
Let me know if this is acceptable. Thank you


Evelyn



NEVER PAY FOR ANYTHING WITHOUT SEEING WHAT YOU'RE BUYING!!

Welcome to Scamwarners nickob and it's good to hear that you avoided getting scammed.

This group has been making massive money and it seems that people are getting the message and your experience reinforces what we tell people. There are so many scammers operating on all ad sites it's just unbelievably reckless to buy anything you haven't seen first.

The scammers use two main scripts and the one you received is typical, and it's nice to hear what other sites they're using. Effectively they're just looking for new sources of victims who may not have heard about them, so they could pop up anywhere.

By way of an update. I was scammed out of £3500.00 a few weeks back.

Once I became aware of the scam I joined scamwarners.com. Despite knowing that "evelyn Hudson" using a UKpom email address was a scammer I played a long with a few additional emails she sent regarding the delivery of the non-existant / fake Nissan she was selling. This was in the hope that the money I'd transferred wouldn't move too quickly.

I phoned the bank in question and, despite not being a customer, they were very helpful. The asked me to go to my local branch and present as much evidence as I could.

Unfortunately the money had already been transferred on when the branch opened, if it hadn't I was told they would have been able to 'freeze' the funds pending investigation.

I was then given the address of the investigations department to write to, again presenting my evidence, and also pointed in the direction of the small claims court.

You can pursue the person you transferred your money to in the small claims court, there are small fees but worth a try as you might get the lion's share of your cash back.

It took about 10 days for the investigations department from the bank to write back to me. They were able to recover some money from the account I'd transferred my money in to, and they also closed the account(s) of that individual once it was clear they were involved in a scam.

If you have been caught in this type of scam like me, my advice would be to print off / save as much evidence as possible and pursue the issue with the bank you transferred the money to.

Glad you were able to partially recover money.

Just to add: time is of the essence. The sooner you flag it, the better.

I regard that last as a success. Please be quick folks and give us banK details on posts on SW, EMAIL HEADERS, MESSAGE and LINKS. We can get them shut pretty fast and if there is money in a/c some may get it back. That's what you did but it matters to work fast.

Some banks are helpful, and some are not, but I'd better not name names.

I believe that one gang have left the country. Either things were getting too hot for them (and I don't mean the weather) or perhaps 'they'd filled their boots', but there is a 'copy cat' gang working that I have picked up who are using very similar tactics and I'll post up details of their scripts and e-mail addies. They can't hide from experienced baiters. Bank accounts in any country risk being shut down if they get reported and that's the one thing victims and baiters should aim for, as well as identifying those involved, which isn't an impossible task.

Hi.
Thought you would be interested to know that the Romanian Car scammers are now targeting Australia. I spotted an eBay advert for a 2009 VW Transporter with exceptionally low Kms at a price substantially below market ($14,650) from a supposedly 100% feedback Sydney seller. I emailed but didn't hear back so thought I wasn't quick enough. Subsequently, the identical advert appeared on another selling site (eBay free subsidiary) but even cheaper. I emailed the advertiser (from Brisbane --- joined 2013) asking if it was still for sale, received a text from [email protected] who asked me to email him if I was still interested. As this was all very suspicious, I googled car scams and exomuk.com and found this site.
Then I got an email from [email protected] (below) As you can see, they have kept the email address, modus operandi and barely changed the wording from the UK version. I guess copy and pasting is easier than thinking up a new story.

Hello,
Its still for sale. Excellent condition with no damages or any faults. All necessary papers available. I am currently in Perth due to my work commitments, If this is going to be a quick sale I will let it go for $12,000 delivered at my costs. Are you familiar to eBay? I will list the 2009 Volkswagen Kombi Transporter on eBay Motors for the $12,000 buy it now price and I will send you a link to my auction, so you can buy it immediate.
As soon as you will confirm the payment to eBay, I will proceed delivery without any additional costs for you.
In case you are not familiar with them, please read their Buyer Protection and will see that they cover 100% the transaction done through them up to $50,000. You will receive the 2009 Volkswagen Kombi Transporter with all papers. As you know eBay is the best company of online transactions. If indeed interested in it and have the funds, I will list it on eBay, as I have a 100% positive feedback with them.
Please let me know your decision.
Thank you
Evelyn.

Then I got another email from Evelyn Carling ([email protected]) with the following:

Hello,
Are you still interested ? The Volkswagen T5 Transporter Van 2009 TDI is still for sale in excellent condition, with no damages or any faults. All necessary papers available with a Clear Title. I am currently in Perth due to my work commitments. If this is going to be a quick sale, I will let it go for $13,760 delivered at my costs.
The deal will go strictly according to eBay rules and policy.
Thank you
Evelyn

I have advised eBay, so hopefully they can monitor these bastards.
Cheers Peter.

Hi MrSugg and "good spot"!! Many of us who have been monitoring Sarah/Evelyn have long suspected that they are operating internationally. Your post tends to confirm that with the use of the exomuk.com domain.

What would be really useful would be to see whether they have Oz based mule accounts in place or whether they are still relying on UK based eastern European mules.

Welcome MrSugg.

This type of scam is completely out of control on UK ad sites, and European ones too, and they are utterly deluged with scam adverts and there are people who spend large amounts of time spotting and reporting the scams. The ad sites don't appear to consider it their responsibility to weed out scams and law enforcement and banking regulation is so lax in the UK I simply wouldn't ever considering using an ad site to purchase anything because making money from this type of scam is farcically simple, and the risk of getting caught is negligible.

It's most likely they'll be using UK bank accounts again (after a major fraud against Australians in a holiday scam about a year ago) which is going to make the scam harder to sell. If they are doing this there is more chance that the UK authorities will have pressure put on them to act as the UK would clearly be seen to effectively be allowing UK bank accounts to be used in crimes affecting Australian citizens. Whereas the UK government is well trained in ignoring its own citizens, it's harder to do when victims are being targeted on a large scale in a foreign country.

As JB said, we'd would be very interested if anyone knows that local Australian bank accounts are being used.

Almost got scammed - THANKS TO THIS WEBSITE!: VW transporter on autotrader and 'ended ebay listing'.

Sort code was from Leicester, London number, and 'scotland' address as below:

"Alice White

21 Stirling Street

Dundee

DD3 6PH

I am genuine as well, I already verified everything with eBay so I can sell safe as you can see I signed for a 7 day return policy this is best I can do."

DETAILS:
Item Title -2013 VOLKSWAGEN TPORTER T28 HLINE 140 TDI
Item Number - 140785144711
Item Price - £9,870.00

Bank Name: Barclays

Account number: 83668312

Sort code: 20-78-42

Beneficiary Name: Mandes Aureliano


Thanks again for all of your posts as it saved me having googled some of the details...

Should I report to anyone else in particular?