would you be sceptical?

hi my sister has a car for sale on carzone so as shes gone on holidays i am taking calls for it, so rewind to last nite we get a text of an interested party who leaves his email address asking for more info. i contact him today with all the particulars. He emails me back with the following.

Hello,
I am so happy you got back to me.. that shows how serious you want to sell this to me and please I want you to consider it sold to me...
According to the Car.. I am ok with the details i got and I am willing to buy it for your last asking price.... I have seen the pictures, exactly what i needed....
If you care to know what I do...
I am into buying and selling of used Car... I repair them and make them look more attractive for my customers.. I am based in the UK, north london to be precise... But now.. I plan expanding my chain of business by coming down here to west africa... I have been here for a while now and the business is moving on well here as I make more profits .. So, I will be needing the Car here in africa... My Method of payment will be by Cheque which will clear in 3 to 5 days.. I have my own personal shipping agent who will take care of the shipment after the cheque has cleared into your account....

So let me hear back from you then I can proceed with the payment...

i am very sceptical indeed and i am looking for advice. I am certainly not giving this guy my name and address if anything goes ahead and may ask him to pay me electronically (paypal) if possible. It sounds a bit too easy going to me. Grateful for any suggestions

Redrocket

riiiiight.... you must be new here :P

SCAM

there are people though that make fools of scammers for fun though
http://www.419eater.com/

oleras

scammer wrote:

Hello,
I am so happy you got back to me.. that shows how serious you want to sell this to me and please I want you to consider it sold to me...
According to the Car.. I am ok with the details i got and I am willing to buy it for your last asking price.... I have seen the pictures, exactly what i needed....
If you care to know what I do...
I am into buying and selling of used Car... I repair them and make them look more attractive for my customers.. I am based in the UK, north london to be precise... But now.. I plan expanding my chain of business by coming down here to west africa... I have been here for a while now and the business is moving on well here as I make more profits .. So, I will be needing the Car here in africa... My Method of payment will be by Cheque which will clear in 3 to 5 days.. I have my own personal shipping agent who will take care of the shipment after the cheque has cleared into your account....

So let me hear back from you then I can proceed with the payment...

Generic email.....well dodgy, no specifics at all to the car you are selling... just ignore it, big SCAM.

Enright

this one been around in various different forms before

ITS A SCAM!!!

cjt156

Got a similar message in Text form while selling a car on Carzone, Adverts & B&S.
Very general, no specifics, highly dubious. Checked the international prefix on the VERY long number & guess what - Nigeria! No racial stereotyping but suffice to say I didn't reply...

neacy69

Scam!!!

ando

go for it, it sounds like you got a great deal!!!

no really, STAY AWAY!!

Fr Dougal

SCAM!!!! Don't touch with a ten foot......

I got similar e-mail for my wife's car, except they want to take the car to Latvia. I googled the e-mail provided and sure enough I found it on a scam list. I posted it in a similar thread here a couple of months ago.

For the crack I tried to lead him on a bit, waste his time etc but he cottoned on and stopped mailing me.

from Kait TV wrote:

18-year-old Roger Turley of Wynne, AR listed his used truck online, asking $1500. A week later, UPS delivered a check for $4999. “I thought ‘something’s not right there.’ And then, we got two checks.” The mystery bidders then asked if Turley if he’d accept a cashiers check, take his $1500 out and wire the balance of the funds back to them. Instead, Turley turned the checks over to his local bank. The bank confirmed he’d been sent worthless paper. "We would have been in trouble if we had taken the $1500 out and sent them the remainder,” Turley reflected. “We would have been liable for all of it." The Cross County Sheriff's Department is looking into the matter. Meanwhile, you have been warned.

More details here
http://www.flogthelot.ie/pages.php?page=6

franksm

LOL

just filter out anything coming to you with the words "Africa", "Netherlands" and generally overuse of capital letters, you'll be fine ;-)

As for carzone, you can put tons of pics up - that's the best way to get the car sold - show the boot, the back seats, the engine, the dash, the tyres, etc etc

bazz26

Anyone genuinely interested in buying a car would not be sending an introductary text message to you late at night. Most scammers in my experience hate talking directly with the person they are trying to con, in the event they get caught out.

They usually try to do most of the communication via text message or e-mail. They probably send these text messages or e-mails to a 100 numbers a day in the hope that one bytes.

thanks to all who replied. i will tell tell him if he's serious about buying the car then he can turn up in person and pay cash like any normal person