Anyone know this car?

I recently contacted a guy about a 996 Turbo which was up for sale. It was extremely cheap (20k), so I was suspicious right away and after chatting with the guy over email for a bit, decided that it was some kind of scam. The odd thing is, he has a log book for the car which he scanned and mailed me and when I HPI'd the car, it came back clean and even his story about the plate being changed currently came back right. He obviously knows the car, but its one of these scams where you have to pay for the car upfront and then he'll (apparently!) ship it over from Canada. He has mailed me details of the company who he plans to ship it with, but on looking at their website, its missing important details like a telephone number or an email address and the "where to find us" link just goes to multimap (UK, not Canada where he says he is), not a specific location. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that this is a scam, but thought I should probably post details of the car up here as its probably a members car or something. The old reg plate is: 5 DEX The original plate is: MW52 SZK The chassis number is: WP0ZZZ99Z3S681184 Any advice on what to do with this as I don't want some poor unsuspecting person falling for it, should I just contact the police? Jay

There is a thread about this type of scam. http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=319195 Car already with shippers so can't show pictures of it or give anyone the chance to view it. Money up front then kiss it good-bye. Police are probably aware of these scams but don't do anything to make people aware of them. Send the money the seller requests to me, that way you can be sure you have been stitched up.[ ][ ] Basic advice - AVOID AVOID AVOID Find one you can see, touch, and an owner you can do the same with, careful with the touching bit though.[ ] Cheers,

Contact the police and also the Canadian High Commission. After all, why would someone take a UK can to Canada and then send it back again? If it looks like a scam and smells like a scam, then it probably is one.

Well his story is that he moved to Canada, got there and was told that he couldn't use the car as it was right hand drive. Sounds pretty stupid to me, you would have thought he would have checked if he was paying to ship it over. (if it were genuine of course!) I'm sure this is a scam, I just wanted to find the real owner and let them know as the car does exist and isn't listed as written off etc. So someone somewhere is driving it around whilst someone else is trying to scam people out of money for it. How did he get the log book for it too, I have a copy of it which he sent me! Also, my suspicion is that the person creating the scam is actually in this country. He sent me this link www.quebec-quick.com which is supposedly the company he will use to hold my money and ship the car over here. If you check out the find us link, it just links to multimap UK. There is no phone number listed and if you search for that company using Google, it returns nothing. I think the website was setup just for this scam.

I have just checked the website he sent me again and it now has a phone number and an e-mail address!

Hi, That website domain name is owned by someone in Panama, it's also hosted there looking at the IP address. If you take a chunk of the text from any of the paragraphs and put it into google you'll find an identical website under a different company name. Cheers, Gavin

Hi Gavin, I did notice that the website was hosted in Panama, wasn't sure if he was though. He's mailing me several times a day now, I've been very clear that I'd never part with money without first seeing the car, he is persistent, I'll give him that! I'd be keen to know where the car is though and let the owner know that someone else has a copy of the log book. I would contact the police, but after speaking to a few people, not sure that they would or even could do something as the person is obviously outside of the UK. Cheers, Jay

Hi Jay, Yeah, I'd be very surprised if the police did anything about it at all. It would be interesting to hear from the owner and maybe find out how the logbook got into the wrong hands (postal connection maybe??) My business is in web publishing and we've seen many of these scams popping up on our forums/classifieds, I just feel sorry for the people who are still getting caught out by them. Cheers, Gavin

Hi Gavin, After following your advice, found this! http://www.lucidea.co.uk/ Looks remarkably similar wouldn't you say! Yeah, I feel sorry for these people because some obviously fall for it. People doing these kind of scams should be found and publicly humiliated and then locked up. The thing is, it wouldn't be that hard to track him down, I have an email address for him and surely the location of the person who published the website could be found by the correct authorities? I guess it would just be down to what the laws are in the country he is in. Cheers, Jay

A former colleague of mine once worked for a major life insurance company in their claims department. They received regular complaints that their policy of requiring sight of the original death certificate before paying out was extremely inconvenient and rather insensitive. One day, a complaint reached the relevant Director, who walked in just before lunch in a state of some anger, remonstrated that they were dragging the company's name through the mud, laid down the law and stated that from now on, they would accept copies. When he got back from lunch, there was a perfect copy of his own death certificate, there on his desk waiting for him.

Don't be a mug[ ] a 2003 turbo for £20k............leave it well alone.

Of course I'm not gonna part with money for this, its obviously a scam, I was just trying to contact the owner!