Selling your car? Don't get caught by this scam

09/06/09

If you get called by someone making an impossibly good offer, beware - it's a fraud

You’ve just advertised your car for sale. The phone rings. Good news. It’s someone promising that they have a queue of buyers waiting to snap up your car.

There is just one thing, though. They are from a vehicle matching service. To meet their ‘buyers’ you first need to register with them. And that involves paying a one-off fee – of anything up to £100. That’s no problem, they tell you – just give us your credit or debit card details and we’ll take that off you now.

And, don’t worry, they may say. We’ll refund your fee if for any reason your car dsn’t sell. Sounds great, dsn’t it?

Trouble is that there will be, almost certainly, no buyer. The whole thing is a scam. You won’t sell your car using their ‘service’ but you will lose your money. We’ll bet that any promise of a refund they may have made won’t be kept.

Most such calls originate from fly-by-night operators. Even if you ask for a contact number, or if your phone retains a number for them, it won’t be answered. Usually, they operate from short-lease rented offices or even overseas. So you’ve not even a chance of going round to see them in person to get your cash back.

Motors.co.uk advice on dealing with such calls is to:

Politely say no to any such unsolicited offers – and end the call
Never give your credit or bank card details to anyone who rings you that you don’t know.
Even if the offer sounds tempting – and you are desperate to sell quickly, give yourself time. Never make a decision there and then: always say that you need time to think, and that you will call back if you wish to go ahead.
If an offer sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly will be.

Motors.co.uk links with the Office of Fair Trading to combat vehicle sales scams

For more advice on vehicle matching scams, go to the govt's consumer direct advice site