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Vehicle seller's right-hand-drive car is in Europe: he says he will ship to the UK and the money will be held in escrow until I am satisfied with the vehicle... is this a scam?
After applying to an advertisement on Auto Trader the seller emailed me back stating he had moved to Germany due to a recent divorce. He had taken his Golf GTI 06reg with him. He was asking £7100 for it and that included shipping. He further suggested a company called Moneybookers look after the financial aspect. This appears to be an escrow account where the money would be kept until an inspection had been made of the vehicle and then once satisfied, the money would be released to the seller. I have checked out Moneybookers and they seem okay. I am trying to establish if there is a catch.
Aspects of this transaction ring alarm bells as we get many similar cases to this which are fraudulent and resemble it in many ways. The normal common points are the car is below book price (this car is £5000 below bottom book), the person claims to have returned home and claims not to be able to sell a right-hand -drive vehicle and the shipping is included in the deal. The way in which your transaction differs in this proposed transaction is that the money appears to be passing through Moneybookers.com which is a respectable company regulated by the FSA. In most cases these are Escrow frauds and the person holding the money is in on the fraud.
There are a number of things to consider here as conduction this transaction in the manner proposed would leave you exposed on a number of counts breaching ideas laid down in our buyer protection guidelines.
You should not buy the vehicle without a vehicle check of some kind to verity the person has clear title to it. But by buying any car unseen and at distance, any vehicle check undertaken by you offers you no protection whatsoever. Most vehicle check services such as HPI insure you against loss if you use their services and fraud takes place. However any such cover would be void in these circumstances as you would be in breach of their requirements: specifically you would not be purchasing the vehicle at the address detailed on the V5. You should not be fobbed off with any excuses as to why the V5 is not available (such as it being sent to the DVLA).
You need to supply Vehicle Registration Mark (VRM), the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), the V5C issue date and the vehicle mileage to be eligible for maximum protection. This needs to be verified by you seeing the vehicle and no money should be paid over anywhere until you have or you risk having a cloned car being delivered to you.
The question then arises is whether the transaction is taking place through Moneybookers or possibly a false front page erected for the purpose which looks like moneybookers in a similar way that most phishing scams build pages that look like Paypal or a bank website but are not in fact genuine. Then even if it is Moneybookers whether you are using their escrow service - which is only part of their offer - or whether they are merely a conduit for delivering the money to him.
Even if the car's title is fine and the money fine, what happens if you wish to reject the car when it arrives? Will the shipper take it back?
We think you should be highly sceptical about this transaction. If you are still considering the purchase then you should get on a plane and go and see it. Although even then you will not be able to conduct checks to the satisfaction of any insurer so as to claim if the transaction turns out to be fraudulent (see the note on viewing at the address on the V5 - above) at least you will have confirmed that the vehicle actually exists, that the VIN matches the VRM and can drive it back with you so you have some assurance that you will actually get your vehicle.
If this is not acceptable to the vendor you should walk away. Personally I think you should anyway.
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