Been scammed

[Fuckfuckbollocks]

NC for this. Feel really terrible right now. My husband bought a car through a website that sell on behalf of the actual seller and deliver the car to you. The money is paid to the company and after the car is delivered the funds get released to the seller. The company have a glossy website and claim to do all checks on said car.

Anyway we found this car and checked all the history out and were sent the service history with all the garages names on so we phoned them all and they all had record of this car being serviced with them etc. Multiple reviews online for this company saying how good they are and forums with people saying they've used them and it all seemed fine.
Husband transferred the money and got a confirmation type email with delivery date and time and the car didnt turn up.
I feel so awful for him, he isnt stupid and was weary about it but did so many checks and paid for checks to be done but everything we questioned there was a plausible answer for. Nothing seemed wrong at all. The company even comes up on Google maps with reviews. Apparently all fake

Sorry this isnt an AIBU I just needed to get it out and hopefully warn anyone considering buying a car this way. We feel so stupid and have lost a lot of money.

Goggle "Devsale Trading Group" (with the quotes to see all the fake forums they set up to look like the similar real forums, even copying the profiles of regular posters to make the posts.

I did a nominee who is UK lookup on the fake coffee and campsite domain names and they were registered in October 2018, so a while ago.

If you Google "Devsale Trading Group" or the URL devsale.co.uk the only results you get are the fake forums, nothing else.

Oddly the real UK coffee forums looks like they had a post about them a few days ago but it was deleted. Might be able to view the Google cached post on a desktop?

So a few tips for other people who come across this thread:

1. Don't blindly trust online reviews. Even on Amazon a lot of reviews are bought rather than legit.
2. Never pay by bank transfer for sale of goods.
3. If something sounds to good to be true, it probably is.
4. If a company claims to be regulated by any governing bodies then check the registration with those bodies.
5. If you have any doubt at all, don't do it. Even the tiniest bit of doubt should not be ignored.

Please add to this list.

All the fake forums have a domain registered through Namecheap Inc. , the same provider as Devsale.co.uk used. This certainly suggests that the same people set them up. The fake forum domains are older (set up in October 18), so the scammers probably create new pages for each scam - this time being for devsale.

The scammers have seriously gone to a lot of effort on this one.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing OP, don’t beat yourself up.
Hope these scumbags get their just desserts and you get your money back

I can assure you I'm not, but thank you so much. I'm simply a mother of a 3 year old (who hasn't had anywhere near enough sleep in the past week to have the energy to be involved in any complicated scams) who happens to have a mutual friend with someone being unfairly associated with this and if it were me I'd hope someone would stick up for me.

In the nicest possible way, that means nothing. The thread that resulted in Oliver's Mum's Army is testament to that. All fake.

Like the reviews.

These scams are unbelievably elaborate.

Just done a reverse image search on the photos of the board of directors and here are two of the real people:

C.A. Ronald Campbell is actually Sebastian James (MD of Boots)

www.thegrocer.co.uk/movers/sebastian-james-appointed-senior-vp-and-md-of-boots/562448.article

Sandra Lee is really Kristina Hudson

www.business.wa.gov/site/alias__business/972/default.aspx

Here is the cached post from 11 February that was deleted, nothing particularly interesting, might be someone who was genuinely looking to buy a car from them, but a bit odd to register and post on a Coffee forum to do that?
<a class="break-all" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kOGEqeNJjFwJ:coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/50067-dev-sales-trading-group-aberdeen-anyone-used/+&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kOGEqeNJjFwJ:coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/50067-dev-sales-trading-group-aberdeen-anyone-used/+&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=

Well done @Elpatso80

I thought his face was familiar!

I notice the link from @nowayhose misspells business the same way as on the original website.

Words on a screen.

Sorry but saying that “I’m just x or y” when behind a username means absolutely nothing.

I’m sure MNHQ could give your IP address to the police to verify along with the report that you’re posting on this website. So if you’re genuine you have nothing to worry about.

I take the view of “trust no-one” when it comes to many of these things. But nobody is infallible so the OP is not to blame for what happened.

What I still don’t understand is if there was a 3rd party involved. eBay, gumtree, Facebook selling, anything like that.

Report to bank and police at once.

I would have never guessed a forum would be falsified. Doesn’t help you OP but you will have opened many peoples eyes so thank you.

Hope you find the bastards

Report to bank and police at once.
Sorry, I pressed Post too soon! But do please report this as quickly as possible, for a better chance of getting your money back.

To be fair @ HopefulButScared does have a previous posting history, but fact remains that someone could post in defence of someone who was named as part of one of these scams and be one of them.

When someone has gone to this level of sophistication to build a scam, it is highly unlikely that any of the names or photos of individuals will be of the real scammers. A bit of amateur sleuthing is all well and good but identifying and naming potential suspects should be left to the police. It's not just about defamation. What if someone spots one of these almost certainly innocent individuals and decides to give them a bit of rough justice?

c1.websitealive.com/23286/Operator/Guest/gDefault_v2.asp?cframe=offline&groupid=23286&websiteid=0&departmentid=0&sessionid_=&skin_id=25076&iniframe=dock&ppc_id=&loginname=&loginnamelast=&loginemail=&loginphone=&loginquestion=&dl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Edevsale%2Eco%2Euk%2F&offline_input0_value=&offline_input1_value=&offline_input2_value=&offline_input3_value=

So I can live chat with them I wonder if they’ve blocked your IP or something? X

@hoodathunkit
I strongly suspect that because the scammers only registered the devsale.co.uk domain in 2020, they have nothing to do with the actual devsale company. They probably register a new domain for each scam, so that they can’t easily be traced.

When I follow that link it says they are unable to chat.

When someone has gone to this level of sophistication to build a scam, it is highly unlikely that any of the names or photos of individuals will be of the real scammers. A bit of amateur sleuthing is all well and good but identifying and naming potential suspects should be left to the police.

Yes, this.

When someone has gone to this level of sophistication to build a scam, it is highly unlikely that any of the names or photos of individuals will be of the real scammers.

agree 100% and made the same point myself earlier

A bit of amateur sleuthing is all well and good but identifying and naming potential suspects should be left to the police. It's not just about defamation. What if someone spots one of these almost certainly innocent individuals and decides to give them a bit of rough justice?

good point

I will ask for my posts to be deleted

@TooTrueToBeGood That was what I was trying to say, too. I hope you don't get vilified too.

@PurplePi Again, I agree, and what I was trying to say upthread.

I've been a member since 2015, originally under a different username. I rarely comment on things, but the IOM connection sparked my interest and I thought I'd have a look. After being threatened with being reported to the police for doing exactly what other posters have done - a bit of googling and reading - and happening to have mutual connections to someone on a very small island, I'm done. How typical of Mumsnet, if you don't agree with the majority then you must be awful and reported. You can't just be a decent person who doesn't agree with someone being named and shamed with zero proof.

OP I am very sorry for what has happened and I truly hope you get your money back and that if anyone else is in contact with them this thread comes up and stops them from being scammed too. All the best.

www.cpfc.org/forums/showthread.php?t=281207