Car scam advice

[HaveIbeenscammed]

We’ve sold a vehicle today. Buyers haggled down….lots of pressure. Paid a chunk in cash and paid some through transfer. Initially said the wrong amount of cash and them transferred more after we counted it. They pushed to leave quickly so we couldn’t count. They Transferred money online before we even agreed the final amount. Both buyers were men and were intimidating and put on a lot of pressure. Trying to hurry us and walking into the house.

so they’ve not long left and are now calling and texting saying the car is going wrong.

Obviously it is a scam. We know because our friend; who is a good mechanic serviced and checked it last week.

but how best to deal with it.
I have suggested my husband ignore all calls and texts form any number we don’t know. I’m obviously worried they’ll turn up though. if they do I’ll call the police immediately.

Any other advice?

In future I'd recommend we buy and car, we got a great price on ours and they only took off £100 for a little dent in the door, cash was in bank within 20 mins.

Annoyingly this is what the relative was going to do, but they massively undervalued it. We did get more (so far unless the scam
ends up resulting in cash being fake or transferred money being returned) but a few grand less than we should have had the my husband not felt he had to reduce price.

Lessons have been learnt. My poor husband was so stressed and anxious all evening and feels guilty over not stopping the negotiations and telling them to leave and for not getting as much for the poorly relative as we could have. I’ve told him that sadly these people are very very good at what they do. No doubt this is how they get all their “income” and they are experienced at scamming and intimidating people. His only problem was that he’s too decent and polite a guy and that left him vulnerable to people who do not give a shot about their treatment of others. We’ve spoken about what we would do differently in future. No more selling large items alone or seeing people immediately - if someone is truly interested they’ll wait a day or two.

I’m feeling better this AM. I am hoping the texts/calls to husbands phone might have stopped.

I’m glad you’re feeling better OP. The sort of people who do this are the scum of the earth and prey on decent people. All that being in a hurry, giving you £5k cash and saying it was £6k, disorientating your DH with a barrage of words from two sides - I can hear them now.

Cash is king in these sorts of transactions. Maybe better to meet the buyer at your bank/building society, watch as they pay cash into your account (so the cashier has checked the notes), then hand over the vehicle documents and keys.

When I bought a car from a back street trader (never again - but that’s another story) she met me in her bank and watched while I used my debit card to transfer the money to her account. She was a right shark so will have worked out that method was safer for her, I don’t know, perhaps your bank could advise.

I’m about to sell a large value specialist item and, as much as it pains me, I’m going to use a broker because their commission fee will be worth it to save any worry.

I'm sorry you've had such a horrible experience @HaveIbeenscammed , hopefully it's all over and done now.
For me, the risk-free-ness (if there is such a word) of the likes of We Buy Any Car it's worth the security of not having dodgy people coming to your house.

We were recently scammed by roofers so this is from the other side sort of not saying you have scammed but they may try to say that.

When we contacted our bank we had to prove there was deliberate fraud. If we said we weren't happy with the work it would have been a civil case through the courts. We had to prove through evidence that the work was not done. Then it was investigated and their account which we paid the money into was blocked while this happened. They were informed by the bank along the way as their nasty messages informed me until I blocked them.

We did receive the money that was in that account and they have closed that account now.

It shouldn't be easy for them to get the money back so I am guessing they are trying to intimidate you into paying all or some back. You can also contact action fraud because they keep a database of people who behave in this way and so any names you were given could flag up on there and add to any investigation or case they are building.

I would not allow a return, they may have stripped parts off