Scam - Prius Price too good to be true

[wchardin]

Originally Posted by Optimus

Often, my favorite part about these types of scam ads is that the "seller" picks out somethingly completely stupid to describe how mint the condition of it is, such as the headliner or door panels. It helps point out the legit ads from the bogus ones very much.

Sometimes even legit ads have some scam to them. I was reading in my local newspaper, and in the classifieds "Toyota Camry XLE '07 - 1 Owner, Sunroof, All Power, 15k Miles, 24/45 MPG, 6CD changer. $21,550" I find it hard to believe, seeing that the 4 cylinder manual at 21/31 and the hybrid at 33/34. I guess they are pretty good at hypermiling, but I bet whoever buys that car is going to be disappointed.

[Optimus]

Originally Posted by wchardin

Sometimes even legit ads have some scam to them. I was reading in my local newspaper, and in the classifieds "Toyota Camry XLE '07 - 1 Owner, Sunroof, All Power, 15k Miles, 24/45 MPG, 6CD changer. $21,550" I find it hard to believe, seeing that the 4 cylinder manual at 21/31 and the hybrid at 33/34. I guess they are pretty good at hypermiling, but I bet whoever buys that car is going to be disappointed.

Good point. We also have a local dealer that advertises in the local news paper as well. I know this because they frequently advertise in the Toyota section of the car classifieds (which I watch frequently) and they constantly list corollas and camrys (such as mid to late 1990's) way over EPA ratings (like 45mpg etc...). Hypermiling indeed.... More like imaginarymiling. They also use any one of 3 different phone numbers in each of the different ads so it looks like different sellers.

[priusenvy]

So I strung one of these scammers along far enough to get him to send me an invoice. There wasn't even a fake escrow site involved, it was just a fake invoice, designed to look like it was sent from Ebay, with a request to wire money via Moneygram.

Scammer is using a Gmail account, but it appears the invoice was sent from a residential RoadRunner customer in central Florida (probably Tampa) using Yahoo mail.
received: from [72.188.252.133] by web1003.biz.mail.sp1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:46:25 PDT
I can't tell if the scammer actually is in Florida, or if the scammer is just using a zombie computer located in Florida to send email.

PDF of fake invoice attached for your entertainment.

Should I send the scammer an email telling them I just received word that the Tampa police obtained a warrant for RoadRunner's customer records, and that he should expect a visit from the authorities any minute now?

[orracle]

Definitely--something like hey, man, I think I should tell you ....

[alanh]

"Motors-security-pay.com" is owned by "diane banti" and has a placeholder website hosted by Yahoo. The email also goes to Yahoo.

www.escrow.com is the only official eBay escrow service, and they will only take a wire transfer to their bank account.

[Prius 07]

Originally Posted by chris5639

I noticed he listed "Fully Loaded.. GPS system" yet the photos clearly indicates this car does not have gps - lack of the map and voice command buttons on the steering wheel and no extra buttons on the MFD.

It is curious why he chose to list it with such a high mileage. Wouldn't folks be more enticed by lower mileage and slightly higher price? Like 50K miles @ say? $13K?

You want it at a higher price? Google the VIN number and you get this:
HYBRIB / CARFAX. GEAT COND. XENON. KEYLESS NO RESERVE For Sale - DragTimes.com
same mileage indicated but here it sells for $14,425 making the $5800 a bargoon ... or NOT!!!
===> poor scam

In response to reporting scams like this here people are asked to report it to the local Police. Not sure what they can do about it especially if it originates from overseas.

[sleonardelli]

It was on Ebay with a winning sale (US $14,425.00):

eBay Motors: Toyota : Prius (item 280228521977 end time May-26-08 08:54:50 PDT)&

No telling if the guy on auto trade is the same guy selling the car but my guess would be he used the ebay Motors add to try to sell this car through auto traders.

[jamesrlaw]

Now we know where the VIN number and photos came from. Obviously, they use an old eBay sale to get all the info and then try to scam people with it. That's why the VIN number is valid and you can get a Carfax on it.