Car scammers target Web buyers and sellers
Published March 27th, 2006
Tara Flynn, assistant director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said buyer and seller scams are growing as quickly as the Internet itself and they are particularly dangerous with something like automobiles. “One of the biggest pitfalls is, it’s a big-ticket item,” she said.
The deals are large in scale and wide in reach, making it especially tempting to con artists and extremely harmful to those who are duped out of large sums of cash.
“It appears they’re affecting every single known listing site for cars,” said Jeff Ostroff, founder of CarBuyingTips.com, which lists more than a dozen car schemes.
Many, perhaps most, of the schemes start with links or ads placed on legitimate and popular Web sites. Those sites often catch the schemes early on, but not always.
Buyers are enticed with a sharp photo and a price well below market value. A recent ad on the popular site, craigslist.com, offered a 2005 Volkswagen Jetta for $6,000. Market value is more like $19,000.
In this case, the Jetta seller responded to an e-mail, saying she had moved to Europe and the laws there made registering the car nearly impossible. The supposed seller said she was living in London and gave an address near the center of town. That address turned out to be a hotel and managers had no record of the seller staying there.
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