Another round of contacts is being made to sellers on various sites, using various email addresses, such as "agent_dickens202@yahoo.com", usually with the UK phone number 7024068861. Again we advise caution when someone is asking a seller to "forward" excess funds to a third party. Cashier's checks are regularly falsified and it might take much more than a week before a fake cashier's check is eventually returned.

Here the initial contact email:

Goodmorning...:
This is to inform you that my client has instructed me to proceed with the purchase of your ......... for his son.He said that i should inform you that the payment will get to you in a cashier check of ($...,000 us) which is a refund payment of a cancelled order earlier made by him.
He informed me that he intends using the refund payment to pay for your vehicle.
He further explained that this check has to be made out in this amount($...,000 us) to you because company policy only allows a refund payment on one cashier check.So you are required to deduct cost of your ............ ($...,... us) when the payment gets to you and refund the balance of ($..,.... us) to my client's agent via western union or moneygram international money transfer for the agent to be able to offset shipping /pickup charges ,contract fees for the pickup agent, taxes, commission and other handling bills.
After payment has reached you and the balance is sent back to his agent,the agent will contact the pickup agent who will come for the pick up of the vehicle for shipping to my client's son.
My client is making some necessary arrangement with some shippers and will provide me with the pickup/test driver agent as soon as he decides the agent to contract for the pickup of the vehicle from it's present location.
NOTE: He also instructed that you are to deduct the transfer charges from the remaining balance($..,... us) which you will be sending down to his agent via western union or moneygram international wire transfer. Confirm this whole arrangement and provide the details requested below for check payment to be delivered to you.

PAYMENT INFORMATION REQUIRED:
1.YOUR LEGAL NAME IN FULL.........
2.POSTAL ADDRESS IN FULL..........................
3.PHONE NUMBER(S).................

Mr Brian Dickens,
25 Lea Valley Road,
London,E4 7PX.
Phone# ... +44-7024068861.

In the past two days, I was contacted about a car I currently have listed for sale. Soon after exchanging a few e-mails with the individual, I recognized that he was not a "broker" as he claimed to be but was in fact a con artist trying to find someone to mistake a thinly veiled on-line scam for an internet initiated automobile purchase.

While I don't think it requires a great deal of technical savvy or business accumen to identify these sorts of scams, I thought I would share my experience with you and you can address it as you see fit.

1. I received e-mail from agent_summer220@yahoo.com who claimed to be an auto broker for a UK customer who wants to purchase the car. He said his client wants to buy the car as a present for his son who has just graduated from university in Canada. He wants to know if I am the car's first owner, if the race car has any accident history and what the firm price is.
2. I resond to the questions asked by agent_summer220@yahoo.com and requested that he call me with any other questions or to discuss matters of price.
3. The person responded via the same e-mail address but now provided his name - Harold Summer. He informed me that he had concluded the necessary evaluation and that his client had instructed him to make an offer (it was close to the full asking price). He asked me to get back to him and advise if the offer met my expections.
4. I responded to agent_summer220@yahoo.com, confirming that the car is indeed still for sale. I ask him if or when he wanted to inspect the car, how his client intended to ship the car and requested that he confirm his client would be covering his brokerage and transport fees.
5. agent_summer220@yahoo.com wrote back to inform me that his client had instructed him to proceed with the purchase of the car for his son. He said that payment would come via cashiers check but that the amount of the check would exceed the amount offered because the check was a refund payment from some unrelated, cancelled order. He justified this by saying that this check had to be made out in this higher amount because the "company policy" only allowed a refund payment on one cashier check. For this reason, I would be required to deduct the purchase price of the car from the amount received and refund the balance (which would have been $17,000) to his client via western union or moneygram international money transfer. This $17K would offset shipping charges, contract fees, taxes, commission and other handling bills. He stated that after I have received payment and the balance was sent back to his client in the manner requested, I would be contacted by the shipping company who would arrange for the pickup and delivery of the vehicle.

It is easy to see what would happen if someone were foolish enough to proceed with this deal. A check would be received in the amount specified and the seller would send the refund via wire transfer. However, a cashier's check only certifies money is in the account at the time of certification. The con artist would remove the funds and close the account soon after the check was certified and sent to the seller. Of course, the seller would receive the check and deposit it, promptly wire the funds and then find out a few days later that the check bounced and that the wire transfer was irretrievable.

As noted above, one doesn't have to be too smart or technically savvy to figure out that this is a scam. The quality of the buyer's written communication was poor and receiving an offer on a vehicle without any spoken communication or detailed inspection brought the proposed transaction into question from the beginning. That being said, if an unsuspecting collector had never used a website to facilitate the sale of a car or did not understand the difference between a certified check and a cashier's check, they might be fooled.

I've been getting these Emails lately from a supposed dealer in the UK asking about all of my listings on behalf of a client who's son is graduating from university in Canada:


-----Original Message-----
From: winter_dan700@yahoo.com

Hello,
I am an automobile broker here in London,UK and i have a client who wants your vehicle as a present for his son who graduated from a University in Canada.
Are you the first owner?
Has it any accident history?
What is your firm price?

Now he's operating as "George Summer". I got another one of these today from email address:

gsummer700@gmail.com.

Hello,
I am an automobile broker here in London,UK and i have a client who wants your make/model as a present for his son in Ontario, Canada.
Are you the first owner?
Has it any accident history?
What is the correct odometer reading?
What is your firm price?

Here the email template that shows how the scheme goes down:

From: George Summer <gsummer700@gmail.com>
Subject: CONFIRM PAYMENT AND PICKUP ARRANGEMENT TODAY.

Goodmorning [name of seller],
This is to inform you that my client has instructed me to proceed with the purchase of your vehicle for his son.He said that i should inform you that the payment for the [year/make/model] will get to you in a cashier check of ($x,xxx,xxx us) which is a refund payment of a cancelled order earlier made by him.
He informed me that he intends using the refund payment to pay for your vehicle.
He further explained that this check has to be made out in this amount($x,xxx,xxx us) to you because company policy only allows a refund payment on one cashier check.So you are required to deduct cost of your [year/make/model] ($y,yyy,yyy us) when the payment gets to you and refund the balance of ($zz,zzz us) to my client's agent via western union or moneygram international money transfer for the agent to be able to offset shipping /pickup charges ,contract fees for the pickup agent, taxes, commission and other handling bills.
After payment has reached you and the balance is sent back to his agent,the agent will contact the pickup agent who will come for the pick up of the vehicle for shipping to my client's son.
My client is making some necessary arrangement with some shippers and will provide me with the pickup/test driver agent as soon as he decides the agent to contract for the pickup of the vehicle from it's present location.
NOTE: He also instructed that you are to deduct the transfer charges from the remaining balance of($zz,zzz us) which you will be sending down to his agent via western union or moneygram international wire transfer.
Confirm this whole arrangement and provide the details requested below for check payment to be delivered to you.

PAYMENT INFORMATION REQUIRED:
1.YOUR LEGAL NAME IN FULL.........
2.POSTAL ADDRESS IN FULL..........................
3.PHONE NUMBER(S).................

Mr George Summer,
72 Lea Valley Road,
London,E4 7PX.
Phone# ... +44-756-403-3740 (Mobile).

In just the past week, I've recieved several of these
Emails on multiple listings currently showing on Anamera.

Always the same cockamamey story about broker instructed
to find/purchase a car for the client's son who just graduated
from college in Canada or South Africa.

I don't think these guys even check the listings as some
of mine have included a 1947 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith
DHC by Hooper (one of three made) priced at $325k and
while there may have been one or two spots of interest
in this car, the first thought that must occur has to be
who in their right mind would buy a car like this for
a kid fresh out of college?

A Toyota or BMW maybe, but a collector Rolls Royce?
Come on now!

I asked Andy Schmidt about this and he filled me in
about details of the scam. A Dutch colleage of mine
who dosent post on Anamera but is a dealer knew all
about the scam as well as a few other similar ones.

Hopefully no one on Anamera has fallen for this scam
but it just goes to show that in this business they come
at you from every angle.

BHW