Scams on the Cars For Sale

[Barnardosboy]

There is an advert for a Smart Roadster Reference #1469014, which is supposed to be available for a mere £2,750. This just has to be a scam, and has raised a lot of concerns on the forums at The Roadster Network website.

Does PH not carry out any basic checks as to the validity and truthfulness of their ads? Just asking, because it never occurred to me that the ads on this site could be anything other than genuine...until now.

[LukeBird]

If you click the 'Report to Administrator' link these are usually very quickly looked at by mods and dealt with.

Welcome by the way!

[Kinky]

PH does a LOT to combat scammers and fraudulent ads - particularly in the background that you'd never see.

See here for guidance: http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/warnings.asp

In addition, regular updates are communicated. Here's an example of one:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?f=23&...

But it's a continual evolvement and cycle to stop these guys. I'm sure one of the bosses will be along to explain a bit more .... but not too much, as we don't want to give the game away as to how

[Stuart]

Kinky is right - we have a number of screening processes in place before ads go live (which are largely successful given the huge overall volume of scam attacks that classified websites in general face), we're a member of www.vstag.org, which means that we share data on scam activity with eBay, Autotrader et al, and we also have good reporting tools in place which ensures that suspect ads are taken down as a precaution until we can verify them. Apart from that all we can do is keep our standing advice updated and keep fighting the good fight.

That ad looks pretty dodgy to me, so we've removed it. You'll be able to see if on that direct URL, but it won't appear in the listings pages so nobody should be caught out by it.

Cheers,

Stuart

[Barnardosboy]

Thanks for the welcome, and for the helpful response. I did try to find how to report my concerns, rather than just posting a new topic on a general thread, but phailed supremely obviously! That's the IT dinosaur in me.