E55 advery and potential scam.

[AMGeed]

I answered an ad yesterday evening that had been put on Gumtree 6 hrs previously for a highly specced E55. What caught my eye was the fact it was a facelift '54plate, almost every extra and only £6500!

I emailed the owner, through Gumtree asking him to confirm the price along with a few other details to satisfy my curiosity. I received the following email by reply this morning that rang alarm bells and killed any interest.

Hello,
I apologize for the late reply. I am in Ireland with business and I had a very busy schedule. Thank you for your interest regarding the Mercedes E CLASS.I can tell you it is in perfect condition, very well maintained. It comes with all the papers. The price is £6,500 and it will include the delivery fees anywhere in the uk. Since i am not in the UK and the transaction will be completed using the Purchase Protection Program offered by eBay. Dealing this way you are being offered a 3 days inspection period to inspect the car while your money is safely held into eBay's account. This means that ONLY after you will confirm to eBay that you want to keep the car , they will release the funds to me. If you want to go ahead with the purchase reply with your complete name, the delivery address,and a phone number. As soon as i will receive these details I will forward them to the eBay, send my approval on this transaction and ask them to contact you.

Thank you,


Leon

I also received the following E-mail from Gumtree that confirmed my suspicions that a scam was being set up.

Hi there,

You replied to the ad 'Mercedes E CLASS' recently. Unfortunately, the user who posted that ad has been reported as committing suspicious activity and/or breaching the Gumtree Terms of Use.


If you are still in contact with the user, we recommend that you be extra careful.

Please consider the below advice:


If you have not shared any personal information with this user, you don't need to do anything. Your email address is protected by Gumtree and they won't be able to contact you.
If you have sent any personal information to this user, like your bank details or date of birth, you could be at risk. Follow our safety advice.
If you have sent an item or money to this user please contact us on [email protected]



Thanks,

The Gumtree Team

Damn shame but a possible chance of losing money. The car in question's registration is KP54 LYC, so beware if you see this for sale anywhere.
Gumtree have now removed the ad.

I do however see another E55 04 reg, black and the asking price is £4100. Something is not right with this either as the car has already reached £8k in bidding on ebay.
It's a minefield out there!

 

[The _Don]

Been going on for years nothing new.

 

[AMGeed]

It was new to me. Perhaps I'm too trusting.

Could one of the mods please edit the thread title. It should read E55 advert. Thanks.

 

[E55BOF]

Scammer called Leon. That name rings a bell; I think we've seen a car of his mentioned on here before.

 

[AMGeed]

I'm sure I have seen the silver E55 he was selling in an advert somewhere recently. It was pictured along with two other Mercedes at the front of a house.

 

[developer]

It was new to me. Perhaps I'm too trusting.

Could one of the mods please edit the thread title. It should read E55 advert. Thanks.

You don't know until you know - a useful heads up.

 

[mercnewby]

I had my car advertised on there for sale 6months after I bought it, same pics that caught my eye...it is a scam ... either they steal to order or some financial scam, I thought I would go along with it and contacted Gumtree and the police... I thought
they would steal mine! If anyone is interested I will give more details of what happend.

Don't get fooled.

Ian

 

[John]

I wouldn't even contact someone with a car that is obviously priced too low - assuming the car is in a similar ball park to other ones for sale.

"Hello,
I apologize for the late reply. I am in Ireland with business and I had a very busy schedule. Thank you for your interest regarding the <INSERT BENT CAR HERE>.I can tell you it is in perfect condition, very well maintained. It comes with all the papers. The price is £6,500 and it will include the delivery fees anywhere in the uk. Since i am not in the UK and the transaction will be completed using the Purchase Protection Program offered by eBay. Dealing this way you are being offered a 3 days inspection period to inspect the car while your money is safely held into eBay's account. This means that ONLY after you will confirm to eBay that you want to keep the car , they will release the funds to me. If you want to go ahead with the purchase reply with your complete name, the delivery address,and a phone number. As soon as i will receive these details I will forward them to the eBay, send my approval on this transaction and ask them to contact you.

Thank you,


Leon"

 

[DSB SL AMG]

One of my mates posted a car for sale on autotrader recently...he opted for email contact, he got a reply, the potential buyer asked him to click on a link within the email to answer some spec queries...

The link took him to a fake autotrader site (all looked good), where he signed in, within minutes they had his trader sign in, but more importantly a lot of people use the same password, ended up with his trader account blocked, + he had to re-set lots of password accounts...be warned!

 

[AMGeed]

I knew I had seen that car before!

Used Mercedes E CLASS (211) E55 AMG 2004 for sale - PistonHeads (Ref 1485026)

So the scammer uses a photo of a well specced E55 taken from PH. Advertises it on Gumtree for half the price and expects the buyer to deposit the money with ebay where the car isn't even being sold!

What a waste of my time. The search goes on.

 

[mr tibbs]

Unfortunately this is not uncommon, sadly one has to be very, very careful these days...

Keith

 

[big boss]

I've seen suspicious low priced cars (Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar etc.) usually on top of the search list on autotrader. The giveaway sign is that one photo of the car always contains an email address. If it's too good to be true, it probably is.