Blatantly stolen cars on Autotrader

[Witchfinder]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but 2009 Audi A6s normally sell for a bit more than £6000, right?

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2011...

Surely it'd be the easiest thing in the world for the police to dig up adverts like this, send them a quick e-mail, and then "visit" said thieves armed with handcuffs and whacking-sticks?

[Hub]

Assuming there is a car and it isn't just photos of another car...

[SteveS Cup]

Could it not be a typo and it's actually £16k?

[mnkiboy]

Not neccesarily stolen. I usually presume the car doesn't exist at all. Still, an obviously dodgy ad and one I would stay away from.

I guess it's like the spam emails asking you to confirm your username and password. All they need is 1 person in a thousand to take the bait and they're quids in.

[kentmotorcompany]

Considering you have been around here for quite some time, I've very surprised you don't recognise one of the most common car related scams going.

The car does not exist.

The if you make an enquiry the seller will tell you it is abroad, and that you pay a (bogus) third party holding company to ship the car over for your approval, and once you have seen and approved the car the seller gets paid.

Or if I was less sympathetic I could have just said:



Its a scam you tard!

[R11ysf]

Obvious scam BUT it's so bloody obvious why doesn't autotrader do anything about it??

Sure it would be easy to write a program linked to a glasses Database and anything outside of 30% under gets flagged.

It'll either be a scam or a massive buy!!

[Witchfinder]

kentmotorcompany said:

Its a scam you tard!

I thought that's what I'd pointed out in the original post. My query was more along the lines of "why don't the coppers do something about it?" Surely this qualifies as low-hanging-fruit.

[paoloh]

R11ysf said:

Obvious scam BUT it's so bloody obvious why doesn't autotrader do anything about it??

Sure it would be easy to write a program linked to a glasses Database and anything outside of 30% under gets flagged.

It'll either be a scam or a massive buy!!

Why would AT bother? The scammer has paid for advert.

Plus that program would fail on damaged or non runners.

[rob.e]

The only contact detail is an email address. What would you expect the coppers to do? Arrest him via email?

The whole point of the scams like this is that you never see the car, you never meet the seller - its all done at arms length via email and relies on a gullible (and greedy) punter who's willing to send money across the web or through the banking system to someone he/she's not met in the hope of securing a bargain.

Unfortunatly because gullible idiots exist who fall for this ridiculous scam the scammers will keep on scamming!

[madala]

It is really hard to believe that such people still exist, if indeed there are I fear for mankind.

[Torquey]

The programmers at AT have a long way to go before doing that.

I get get refused to submit an advert because my phone number is thought to be a trader. I've sold 3 cars through AT over 10 years.

[DannyVTS]

It's a scam, he will live in Turkey and need you to give him £180 for shipping fees because they cannot afford to tax the car over there or some st

[FurballS2000]

Perhaps the custard test should be manditory for advertising on autotrader?

[Kiowan]

Witchfinder said:

kentmotorcompany said:

Its a scam you tard!

I thought that's what I'd pointed out in the original post. My query was more along the lines of "why don't the coppers do something about it?" Surely this qualifies as low-hanging-fruit.

No it's not, you said it's a blatantly stolen car, very different to a scam. How can someone be arrested for potentially being a scam, until he's actually attempted to scam someone or has in the past it's nothing to do with the law, it's just upto Autotrader to remove them.

It's obviously crap so just ignore it, adverts like that are everywhere.

[jb9193]

FurballS2000 said:

Perhaps the custard test should be manditory for advertising on autotrader?

This.

[va1o]

There really needs to be a report button for this sort of thing on Autotrader, the number of scam adverts is getting ridiculous