Facebook car scam? - with email

[triggeringnometry]

We lost our car in the Luton Airport car park fire. We now desperately need to replace it, so have been searching. I found a car on Facebook, that was at an incredible price. The search on DVLA shows that the car has low mileage, one owner and has a 2018 plate.

I messaged the seller on FB, asking about the car and if the price was correct and was immediately asked to contact, by email, a completely different person.

I used an email address that I don't use for important things (so I don't get scammed too much).

The seller responded saying that the car was bought at auction and they mainly deal with transportation and that due to it being at their warehouse we couldn't see it, or pick it up, but they could transport it to us and we have a 5 day full refund guarantee 🤔I asked how much the shipping would be and got this response

*Thank you for your interest! This vehicle has been checked by professionals and is in perfect condition. It is not in any category. We have the vehicle at Peterborough PE6 0GA along with the documentation and a power of attorney, so the transaction will be conducted through our company. BROADWAY SHIPPING LTD will handle the shipping, payment, and document exchange. The deal includes delivery, and the vehicle will arrive at your address within a maximum of one week, accompanied by all the necessary registration documents. The transport fee, which includes insurance tax, will be £125. There are no additional costs or charges. Additionally, you will have a 5-day inspection period. If you don't like the vehicle or find something better, you can return it at our expense. We want to assure you that transactions conducted through our program are 100% secure. Security measures are constantly reviewed and modified to adapt to evolving global circumstances, drawing on both internal assessments and the support of government agencies. Our top priority is the safety of our staff, customers, and the general public.

We hereby take full responsibility for the security of the transfer. This transaction is protected by services provided by BROADWAY SHIPPING LTD , including insurance, feedback, and dispute resolution. If you wish to reserve the vehicle and obtain more details about the process, I will need your legal full name, shipping address, and phone number to register you as the Legal Buyer. They will then contact you with further information on how to make the purchase*

It really screams scam doesn't it? The warehouse they say it is, is miles from where the company is based and why have professionals check it, if they're selling for a super cheap price, having bought it at auction?

They did send several photos, not sure how they got them, and the car is real, but really...? The language is so bizarre!

Yup, scam. Facebook marketplace is increasingly becoming the most prevalent source of scams.

There was an R4 programme about this just recently (Weds ??10th Oct??). I think the conclusion was if it loos too good to be true then it probably is. Apparently it was quite the sophisticated set up particularly getting round current financial safety issues.

You and yours last week on this.

m001r7zf

please don't proceed. so many scammers on FB marketplace. i've even had an email from my bank warning about them.

Buy a car that you can go and inspect from a bricks and mortar retailer. Pay by credit card if you can. This gives you maximum protection under Consumer rights legislation if anything goes wrong. Never make a barge purchase by bank transfer - you will never see the money again and likely but the item purchased either

It's a scam.

I'm so sorry you lost your car as well, that must have been such a shock and absolutely gutting.

Yep looks scammy to me. I can highly sing the praises of Cazoo, I’ve bought two cars with them now. So much easier than searching marketplace and traders.

I work in Fraud. It is definitely a scam and you would be unlikely to get your money back in the event of a scam given that the price is too good to be true and you haven't viewed the vehicle.
Make sure you view any vehicle & check the VIN and logbooks for proof of ownership

Hi
can I just ask what happened with this?
what it a scam?
thanks

@Coley060709 yes it was a scam. We lost our car in the Luton Airport car park fire and need one ASAP. I have contacted lots of sellers on FB and there are lots of people on there, who immediately reply with a message to email. They all have the same script and they all use different shipping companies.

If on FB and you enquire about a car and they tell you to email, it's a scam.

Don't even bother trying to report to FB, I've reported dozens, they're using real profiles (which add an air of genuineness to it, as they've been on there for a long time, may belong to groups you do, but usually haven't updated their profiles in months). FB gets back to you saying there is nothing wrong with the profile, which is obviously hacked.

I found this group, full of the same scams, I've not joined, but it's public.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/FVSA.Group/

Forget the log in to FB bit, the link above goes straight to the group, but if you're wary about clicking links the name is Facebook Vehicle Scam Alerts if you search for it on FB, you will find it.

It seems to be a genuinely registered company, at Companies House and to have a real address. There are a load of sites mentioning it.

BUT!

It has zero reviews on Google.

In case anyone is interested I followed through to the email stage with another scammer.

My name is fake, the address is slightly off of a shop and I gave them an out of service phone number. What is interesting is that they say they will ship with no cost to the buyer, but the price at the bottom then includes a £118 shipping and insurance fee. They kindly say they won't touch any money without the buyer's consent! 😂

Clues such as 'tires' instead of 'tyres' and 'canceled' instead of 'cancelled', gives away the game that they are not in England.

Generally people don't sell a car for a really low price, if people are happy to take a loss they'll invariably sell it via WBAC or the like as its so much quicker and easier! It is tempting though especially with it being hard to secure a second hand car for a decent price at the moment. Glad you didn't get caught out, its horrible isn't it that people do this.

@SinnerBoy it looks like it may be dormant. The new one (above), uses a different shipping company, some are real. The Broadway Shipping one has one director, I tried to find him on FB, the only people with that name were not Belgian and did not live in Belgium. Seems a very elaborate scam. Having a company on Companies House lends a sense of legitimacy to it (whether they've stolen a company, or paid a small fee to register, apparently Companies House do not verify the people applying).

As an aside, I've noticed that a lot of marketplace car ads now mention "clean title" and "sold without liens or encumbrances ". These are American terms and scream SCAM

That post code/address is the middle of a field in Peterborough. The car bit in Peterborough is somewhere else (boongate)

There's a vehicle company based there called trade 2 u. Its got really really bad reviews.

Don't do it.

Is the owner a Nigerian prince?

Scam. Why would they need power of attorney for a car 🤣

About 50% of vehicle adverts on FB Marketplace are scams. There have been calls for FB to be more proactive in preventing these appearing, but in reality FB are just a free ads service - they're only interested in the Boosted Ad and sidebar ad revenue. Go careful, watch for the red flags and if you can, stick with local adverts where you can view in-person before purchase.

The rules for avoiding dodgy car adverts haven't changed in decades, the problem is that it's become easier to reach more people with a cheap/free ad, we've all got too used to easy online purchases, and it's got very easy to send relatively large payments without much effort.

You’ll find the photos they use are ones from the same cars being sold by genuine people on auto trader this is so fake once you start to look into it

I feel nostalgic for the days of walking into WH Smith with a pen and pad thumbing through the cars sections of LOOT. You learnt the trick of phoning up to ask "Is the car for sale?", and if they replied "What car?" then you knew they were a dealer flipping a number of motors on their driveway.

Broadway Shipping Ltd

the easiest, cheapest and fastest way to pay is using Online Banking: You can log in your banking application and make an electronic transfer from there, if there is a limit on your online transactions, you can submit more than one transfer, until you reach the total amount. Please mention under the payment reference, 2609, this will allow us to identify the transfer. This should be added on the payment description.

Here you have the payment details:
IMPORTANT: Do not specify that the payment is for buying a vehicle otherwise you will have to pay VAT fee 20%

Account Name: TRANS MIH LTD
Account Number: 54703014
Sort Code: 40-34-18

Please use the details exactly as written above. Do not modify account name or account details otherwise your payment will be rejected by our system.
Once the transfer is done, reply with a screenshot to process your payment faster!
Laura Richards
Senior Sales ExecutiveBROADWAY SHIPPING LTD

there is also a phone number and the guy put the phone down on me!

033 0001 1248

Yes this is obviously a 100% scam with bells on. Does anyone actually fall for these?!