NuttyProfessor

If you look in the images, you'll notice the car is photographed on the property of the new River Green Community in BC Canada.(see image)
Apparently, lots of rich foreigners have moved into the BC area and purchased many high-end sports cars that weren't readily available in their native countries.

link to community:
http://aspac.ca/projects/river-green-community/

More than likely the scammer robbed the images and then took a somewhat matching VIN from a salvaged Turbo listing. If you notice closely, the scammer doesn't show the actual door with the VIN tag to match up to the car. Common sense tells you by just matching the fancy website to the not-so fancy real dealership with different phone number and you have to scratch your head and say... something doesn't line up. Never NEVER wire you money to these clowns.

linderpat

Please tell me that you reported this to the FBI? That threat takes the game to a whole 'nother level. If the Russian mafia, there could be an issue, and the feds need to be involved.

raidersfan

yeah, the listing may not be legit, but the price is! Nobody wants M3/M4 models right now. 2015 M4 are about even with similar E92 M3 comp package cars! Carmax had a ton of them, at last glance.

Upscale Audio

I reported it to the FBI and the internet fraud dept. It won't mean a thing. The best way I could help others is to put a review up on Google Reviews and Yelp like this: https://www.yelp.com/biz/el-vochito-...33hg7oNaN3Sasg

It's one thing if it's a single for sale listing by the guy that's "An airline pilot. My attorney has the keys and power of attorney"

This is way more sophisticated and as petrol-heads I think we owe others a little help if we see s scam like this. I had to CALL Autotrader to threaten them after they ignored my report 3 times. Finally got a guy named Mars in the Fraud department, and he wasn't too hip on this more recent fraud trend. They took the ads down.

If we see hijacked dealer websites like this it would be great to say something. If I find a car that's too good to be true, and the same dealer has 10 other cars...and I know it's s scam. Help a brutha.

The pain of the guy on the Tesla forum who just 2 days earlier wired a lot of money was palpable. It's a big hit, and these websites are so so polished.

Petza914

Kevin, good for you on the follow-through instead of just giving up with all the red tape and people not really caring.

So that dealership website is fake and only the Facebook site they manage selling older Hondas is actually legit? How does the legitimate dealership get that fake site shut down. It's weird as they use 3 different backdrops for the car photos on the fake website - the building where the paint is coming off the black dock doors, the foreign country shots in front of the white steps, and then the one Tesla with photos in the corner of a concrete building. Where do they get these photos using the same backdrops for different cars - from other legitimate cars that are for sale at other dealerships?

How long does it take for the FBI to shut down a fraudulent website like this?

I have to admit, I'd have thought this was a legit dealership, but no way I would wire any dealership more than a $500 deposit on a car until I could fly up there to PPI it myself, pay the rest of the money, and drive it home and that $500 would be via PayPal or a credit card where I could contest it if necessary. I guess people have too much money if they're OK with wiring $50,000 or more to someone they don't know.

Pete

ManoTexas

Have to give eBay credit. Been a while, but when looking for a car ran across ad like this that was way wrong. Contacted the seller to see what they would say, got odd response. Contacted eBay and ad was removed
within hours.

sandwedge

No matter how much time and effort the scammer spends on making the whole thing look legit, it still wouldn't work without a buyer willing to wire money for a car he/she has never seen and a car that may not exist but if it does it's most likely not owned by the seller. So again as I see it, these scams are only made possible by irrational (being polite now) buyers who don't even begin the most basic steps of the due diligence process.

SpeedyD

Again, proper diligence will expose pretty much any of these as frauds but I can certainly understand a transaction being done without physically going to the location.

The real key is lining up payment info with physical addresses and names verified to those physical addresses. Easier when dealing with an established dealership (eg a Porsche or other authorized dealer) but doable for any dealership with a physical presence.

I have reported several fraudulent sites in the past to Autotrader but never followed up beyond initial reporting and also letting the legit dealer know someone was spoofing their company info. Typically the frauds are “layered” onto an existing business and use similar website names, with fake info and then the same or similar physical address. The approach is to entangle a fraud with a legit business. This is why it becomes important to tie in physical and tangible info for payments with physical and tangible info on the legit business.

Really unfortunate that the FBI doesn’t take this more seriously (or maybe they do but it doesn't seem that way). Tons of individual scammers out there too - I have had some fun with one in the past... where it was one of those “pay my transport broker $X...” to do a clearly too-good-to-be-true deal. Stringing them along for a couple weeks with BS and then mentioning at the end you have a Fed buddy that can help hold funds in escrow... and see them disappear.

Doug H

If deal appears to good to be true, it probably is.

I cannot stress enough that bottom feeding for the lowest priced high-end sports cars of any model and year is the worst way to introduce yourself to the brand or that type of car. If not an outright scam like this, the chance is still great that that so called cheap car will end up costing way more than a normally priced car once it is sorted out. Spend a little extra to get a high quality car, get a PPI and purchase from a reputable dealer so you might have some recourse if necessary.

Ask poignant questions in an email/writing like has it been wrecked, has it been painted on any panels or anywhere, is service up to date, what percentage are brakes, tires and etc., does the car need anything? Get their response in writing. Car dealers know the answers to these questions. Most private owners of these type cars know the answers. If they act like they don’t know, move on. They know, but are not telling you. If they affirmatively misrepresent something in writing, it will be much easier to address, especially if a reputable dealer. If private individual, good luck getting a return call once you get the car home if it turns out to be a crappy car.

SpeedyD

Good tips from Doug. Another tool you can use is reverse image lookup in google. The photos are almost certainly pulled from other listings and it can be a quick way to filter out scams (or at least helps raise red flags).

Upscale Audio

I did an image search on the cars they listed. Nothing showed up and the reason is simple: They put their banner logo on the bottom of each picture. I then asked them to send me a picture of the VIN and the guy was super helpful and said "no[ problem...happy to" then said he sent it. Twice.

There's no doubt this works. They would have sold probably a million dollars worth of cars in a month. Not bad. Hence them calling me to threaten my life. F*ck them.

I googled the VIN's too, and saw they advertised on Craigslist but Craigslist removed the ads pretty quick. Autotrader and KBB.com are the same company, and they're the ones that need to step up their game. I was told there is so much they have days of reports to look at. I slammed them for it, saying that means they do sh*tty job and need to hire more people. I'm being interviewed for an article for a pretty big news agency about my company, and sent this whole story to the reporter. He said it sounds interesting and want to hear more. But who knows.

My business gets fraud attempts all the time. I am so so diligent and very good at sniffing the fraud out. But we still get ripped off a couple of times a year, and just got hit with $4500 from Payal. A new trend is hacking a business or a customer's e-mail address, seeing that you ordered something expensive, calling FedEx to have it re-routed to a FedEx pickup location, then walking in with a fake drivers license. Our FedEx shipping is locked down. Customers cannot change the delivery. address.

sandwedge

Absolutely. I bought my current GTS without seeing it in person and had covered transportation to my house. Not a Craigslist deal though. Car was sold by a RL member through a Porsche dealership in Ohio. Not sure exactly what kind of arrangement they had but there was never any doubt about the legitimacy of the deal. I spoke with a number of individuals at the dealership, got maint. and service records from them that all matched the VIN # of the car and then had a third party PPI done.

The fact that a Porsche dealership was involved to begin with pretty much ruled out a scam in my opinion. Add the third party PPI and I think you can feel pretty confident buying sight unseen. Not saying that a dealer has to be involved to rule out a scam but buying from a private party through Craigslist, Autotrader or whatever adds greatly to the due diligence that becomes necessary imo.

Prairiedawg

I don't understand why anyone wouldn't go physically set eyes on the car first. With all the scams out there and even the dealer horror stories (see Porsche Beverly Hills), why not go see the car you want to buy. These cars are mid to high 5 figures, up to 6 figures. You wouldn't spend $200 on a plane ticket. I seriously considered 2 cars before finding my winner, which was a CPO at a P dealer. I went and looked at all 3, The 3rd I brought the check with because everything seemed right, but I was going to see it first before I signed anything.

Each time, the PPI cost more than the flight. Saturdays are good days to fly, less travelers and the flights are less expensive. Fly in, look at the car, fly out. 2 out of 3, the seller picked me up from the airport. The other one, the wife and I made a weekend in Boston out of it. 2 of the 3 times, the flight was well under $150. Granted this is out of O'hare so the flights are a bit less, but the point is made. If something seemed to good to be true or didn't smell right, I wouldn't even consider it but even if it all looked legit, I want to see what I'm buying.

Just my 2 pennies.

Petza914

Totally. I bought both my 997s and my Cayenne long distance. Agreed on a price on the vehicle, contacted the local Porsche dealer and arranged a time and day to bring it in for a PPI where I could go through it with their mechanic, then setup a round trip flight. In all 3 cases, the cars passed the PPI, we adjusted the price based on what the PPI found, and I drove them home, abandoning my return trip.

I'm in SC - one came from Pittsburgh, one from Detroit, and one from Sarasota. No way I'd buy a long distance car without following this program. If further away, I'd take the return flight and ship it to myself using Reliable Carriers, but still go seen it in person to inspect and purchase it.

sandwedge

For me it has exactly nothing to do with the cost of travel but with the hassle involved. I've bought two E46 M3's sight unseen and my current GTS the same way. All three were exactly as described and came with extensive service/maint, records, Most importantly though in my opinion is to buy a set of eyes to take your place checking the car out. With all three of these deals I spent a lot of time finding just the right place to do the PPI. Spotless reputation and plenty of recommendations were a must and I found one for each of the three cars mentioned. All three were expensive as PPI's go but they really did what I wanted them to do which as I said was to take my place and go over the cars thoroughly in detail with no consideration to time spent.

All three reports were extensive and included large numbers of pictures, some pointing to small scratches so small I couldn't even see them. So I don't know what my traveling across the country looking at these cars in person would have added to my impression of the cars. To me, time spent finding the best PPI executor is time better spent than traveling. You'll have a PPI no matter what so why not put the effort into getting the best where there's no need to be there in person.

Subjective thing. For some, paying a $50K or more for a car without seeing it first is unthinkable. Then guys like me who's fine with doing some research finding just the right person checking the car out for me without me having to be there. Never had a bad experience doing it this way. Important to remember that the notorious case of the guy that got screwed by Beverly Hills Porsche buying a 997 GTS sight unseen did NOT have a PPI done.