Does this sound dodgy??

Never sold a car before and we've put our little car online to sell it. Here are 2 enquiries from people:

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Hi thanks for mailing, i am a marine engineer, i am at sea right now.
I am buying this for my son as a surprise gift thats why am offering
you that amount. I can only pay through paypal at the moment as i dont
have access to my bank account online(i dont have internet banking
with it), but i have it attached to my paypal account, and this is why
i insisted on using paypal to pay,all i will need is your paypal email
address to make the payments, and if you dont have a paypal account
yet, you can set one up at paypal it cant take you less than
3mins to do that, i will be expecting your paypal email so l can pay.
I have a pick up agent that will come for the pick up after payments
has been sorted. l will be waiting for your reply asap

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Thanks for the swift response...I am willing to offer you $4,000 for it.due to the nature of my job and location...i will not be able to come for inspection,am a very busy type as i work long hours everyday,i have gone through your advertisement and i am satisfied with it.

As for the payment..i will be paying you via the fastest and secure way to pay online(PayPal).

I have a private courier agent that will come for the pick up after the payment have been made ...so no shipping included.

You can now send me your PayPal email so i can pay in right away and also include your address in your reply.If you don't have a paypal account, you can easily set up one...log on to paypal and sign up. its very easy.I await your reply asap.

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Do they sound dodgy to you?? Who would not want to see a car before buying it?? They don't even ask anything about paperwork and signing it over etc. And they're so demanding! Haven't even talked to us yet and they have already organised a courier and are awaiting our paypal details?? I don't think so! They just sound odd to me.

YES YES YES!!!!!!!!! dodgy its a scam

YES what kind of person does not want to see a car before they buy it

Yes it's dodgy someone got scammed by this. Not sure if it was this forum or another that I'm on but the marine engineer one in particular

Yeah I'd be dodging that bullet I think. xo

There was a thread on this a little while ago, its a scam. Please dont do it.

Yes, definitely a scammer, I've heard this one MANY times before.

Very dodgy............

Just say that to them. Sorry, if your are willing to purchase the car, you will need to come here and person to sign it over etc.

Or,

Sorry, due to some techinal issues with my computer at the moment, i am unable to get onto my paypal account. I am writing this from a friends computer.Is there a number I could call you on to discuss another arrangement? (chances being, they wont have phone hahaha)

Ive heard the marine scam before on here too...

dont do it hun.

Phew, DH is not responding to them. What are they planning to do??

I wouldn't even respond, they are dodgey to the max!!

Good luck with selling your car though!

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Phew, DH is not responding to them. What are they planning to do??

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Most likely send you fake payments and steal your car I'm guessing.

This was what DH got when he was selling his bike

VERY VERY DODGY! Make sure you do not click any paypal links they give you too!!!!

They will request money from you first so please dont do it.

How can they make fake payments? (just curious).. i thought paypal was pretty legit?

Found this:

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Car Buying Scam Using PayPal

Watch Out for Scammers When Selling a Car Online



Seller beware if you are planning on selling your car on the internet.
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When Sarah recently placed an ad on several popular websites trying to sell a two year old car with low mileage, she received emails from interested buyers almost immediately. Sarah was convinced her car would be sold and she would have the much needed cash in hand in no time.
She was surprised how similar some of these emails appeared. The interested parties wanted to buy the car through PayPal only and they were emailing from a distant location that prevented them from transferring a payment any other way. One person said they were a crew member with Air Canada and another person said they were conveniently ”at sea. “
It also seemed odd that the buyers asked redundant questions such as the asking price when it was listed right on the ad, or they would ask for pictures even though photos were provided. These potential buyers promised to pay the full price through PayPal without ever seeing the car in person or taking it for a test-drive. Each person had a “pick-up agent” that would pick up the car once the payment was processed.
When Sarah told each of these prospective buyers that she would only accept cash, every one of them discontinued communication with her. She called PayPal to try to find out if this was a recent common scam and how it worked.
How the Car Buying Scam Works Through PayPal
PayPal informed her that some clients purchase an expensive item and then do what they call a “charge-back” – that is they call their credit card company afterward to inform them that they will not authorize that charge. Even though PayPal assured her that she would receive her payment, once a credit card company refuses a charge, then there will be a dispute that could take who knows how long to settle.
She went online and looked for examples of this car buying scam and came across Gerry Gainford’s article. Gerry was asked to send money via Western Union to a shipping company in England to cover pick-up fees of his car.
The buyer sent a verification email from a “mail2pay.com” address to an email account that was not associated with any PayPal account for several thousands of dollars. He was then told that Paypal wouldn’t release such a large sum until he sent the money to his shippers through Western Union.
The Western Union website urges consumers to protect themselves from fraud in the following ways:

• Never send money to someone you do not know personally using a money transfer service.
• Do not use money transfer services to pay for online auction purchases.
• Taxes or fees on foreign lottery winnings should never be paid for through money transfer services.
• Never send a payment in the name of a friend or relative with the intention of changing the name to someone you do not know personally.

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Theres a few ways
If you dont know the odds and ends of paypal its easy to get tricked

1. theres something called a e-money transfer (or i forgot what it is) but it is like a cheque where it looks like they have sent you the money but infact it takes a few days to clear the funds. They could pretend that they sent you the money (because it looks like that but it is actually being cleared by paypal) and then they can withdraw these funds before it is being cleared

2. With this scam they usually will send you a request for money (make up some story about having an issue with the courier and they require x amount of money first which he will later send back to you) then you accept the request for money and thats the end of your money!

Google the scam in google and you will see the different ways people have been rorted.

:o scary stuff!

they had a segment about car scams on today tonight (i think) on friday - but it was in regard to using a company called Western Union but very similar to the Paypal scam

As the others have said DODGY!!! I would repot them to paypal (if you can do that?). I hope you sell your car to a honest genuine person soon.

Make sure you do not click on any links they send you as well.
They will try and steal information from you such as bank account logins and passwords as well as other information they can use to steal your identity!

Dodgy with a capital D!

You can report it as a scam to the ACCC (through the scam watch website) might prevent them from trying it again on someone else.

Hey Heaven

We advertised our car with two sites and I received two almost identical emails to yours.

Interestingly the emails both came through carsguide.com.au, we didn't get any scammers through carsales.com.au.

We had to pay for the carsales ad, whereas the other one was free - maybe when you pay you get better protection from scammers!!!

Anyway I tried to do the right thing and contacted carsguide to tell them about the two scammers, as it says on their website "If you are contacted by scammers, please report to us straight away" - they basically said there was nothing they could do, too bad so sad. :rolleyes:

But DH and I had a little fun with one of the scammers, we emailed back and pushed them to come and look at the car - we got a few emails going back and forth and the excuses for NOT coming to see the car got more and more outrageous, it was sort of amusing for a while!

Dont do it someone on BB posted same email replys a while ago big scam!!!!!!

Very very dodgy, it is a well known scan, even the car sale websites have it plastered all over their pages!!

I have a whole heap of them when I was selling my car, here is a way to stop them.

In your listing near the top put it
"I do not accept PayPal as payment for this vehichle, genuine enquiries only"
I foudn that once I put that in, I didn't get any more dodgy enquiries :D

Goodluck selling your car :D

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Dodgy with a capital D!

You can report it as a scam to the ACCC (through the scam watch website) might prevent them from trying it again on someone else.

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Just to add I reported it to the car sales websites and the ACCC and didn't get a response from anyone, I jsut think it is too rife and they are just getting too many complaints that they can't deal with them all...

Yep, there are so many of these. If you suspect its suss, any reply you get that it, copy a line or two of the email and paste it into a google search. It will show up pretty quick when many other people have reported the same thing.
It sucks they cant do anything about it

Hi all, Just wanted to share with you all that when I brought my car I wasn't able to physically look at it, but I sent a friend and had a phone call with them while they looked at it.
So people do buy cars without looking at them, but this person sounds like a horrible scanner. Just have some fun with it Heaven :)

yes but having someone physically looking at the car for you is different then just paying for a car no one has looked at.