A few years ago, in 2011, my wife at that time and I were really wanting a Corvette. Specifically, a Z06 Corvette, that aluminum-framed, titanium-suspended, carbon-fiber-bodied version that performs like a 1/3 price Lambo. Yes, that one. They've made the C6 version of it since '06, so some of those, and the '07s, were drifting into price-of-a-loaded-new-Camaro territory by mid-2011. New Z06s are expensive, so they typically go to owners who care for them, a lot, versus falling into the hands of "Fast and Furious" types who flog them. In other words, many/most Z06s have spent a lot of time being cared for and garaged, and that makes for a great used car when they move on.
We had created and saved internet searches where the example in question had fallen into our price range. At the time, we had enough going on with a home sale, and home purchase, that springing for a new car wasn't high on the list for a few months. But one "hit" really grabbed our attention, a 2008 Z06 "9,000 miles, one-owner, never wrecked or abused, garage-kept" at 2/3'rds of it's correct market price. Hmmm. We discussed among ourselves...how bad is the flood damage, who in Nigeria is selling this car for his brother who's in Switzerland but the car is in New Jersey, and so on.
But the ad looked good. The car was in Wisconsin, had a VIN # listed, CARFAX report available, the owner's email id and phone number listed, all on the up and up. I agreed to call the guy and see about it.
Hmmm...the phone number listed didn't work. Maybe a misprint.
But I was doubly wary. That car was priced too low...way too low. Its seller isn't someone's aunt who inherited the car and posted it in the local paper, but someone who's savvy enough to post on Autotrader, knows to list the VIN, etc. And so, is entirely capable of knowing that car's real value. And now, this second strike...a "bogus" or at least non-working, contact number.
I went to work on the VIN next, googling "decode GM VIN number" to get to the official GM site for their codes. GM? Corvette? 08? LS7 V-8? Built in Bowling Green, KY? All these checked out, looked legit. The seller had a CARFAX to share, and of course, there's a CARFAX link right on AutoTrader to check it out. I linked there and typed in the VIN.
Zero records found.
Okay...hmmm. There should be something; the car was sold, was registered, paid sales tax, was serviced by someone, somewhere, was licensed. Something. But this car had no records at all. That's troubling.
I emailed the seller about 10am, telling him the car looked great, and I had a few questions for him (actually, at this point, more than a few), but the phone number he listed in the ad wasn't working.
He mailed back about 4pm, all cheery. The car was still available, he has the clear title, it's in excellent condition, no ding/scratches, all original, never smoked in. He thought he had it sold for a bit more, however that buyer's financing fell through, so he posted a sell-it-quick price since at this point it's the car or his house. So he needs a cash buyer, he says, and if I'm going to be financing then he can't wait that long. He didn't mention the bogus phone number I'd mentioned.
Cash only, eh? Oh boy. (That's not necessarily a deal-stopper, but with the other stuff so far, you can start to see where this is going).
Then, there was what came next. In this not-cheap purchase, you'd think there'd be talk of where the car could be seen, what were my questions about its condition, when did I want to take a look at it, and so forth. He didn't talk about any of that.
What he did talk about was that he had signed up with Google Checkout for protection on the sale, and if I'd email him my Google information, they could set up the transaction. (He also said this would allow me time to come and test drive the car, and provide a 7-day inspection period before they would release the funds to him...I'd missed that part yesterday, and it's complete hogwash, of course).
At that point, I was done, and chuckling. He's a scammer, all right, this is a fake car/offer/whatever.
Out of curiosity, I thought to check out the CARFAX report image he'd sent along with 27 pictures of the car (that he probably got off Ebay last month, when some legit person was selling a snow-bound Corvette). I started looking at it, basically a screen shot of a CARFAX screen display, with much of the images "X"d for not downloading properly. This report said the car had *4* records; how could that be, I'd just run it myself that morning? The four records were all for original sale, and follow-on maintenance, at a Chevy dealer in Puyallup, WA. Really? Oh, so he musta moved to Wisconsin since.
What's that VIN # again? Hmmm...I looked at the report he'd sent, it was off by one digit/letter from what I checked from the AutoTrader ad this morning, an "X" replaced the "5" that it had for the "check digit" value. I tried that new number at CARFAX: "incorrect VIN entered", meaning the check-digit didn't match the rest of the number. So it was a fake VIN on the report, but I mostly knew that already.
One final note: one of the few things that did print on his "CARFAX" report / screen printout was a blue ad box in the left column. It read, "to find other great values in the Clearwater, FL area, contact....". Florida? Um, no.
So I called my wife about 4:45pm to relay this last part of the discussion. We'd been texting off/on a couple of times since that morning, and were already very suspicious that this was a hoax/scam. We concluded that it would be a good karma/samaritan/right thing to do to let AutoTrader know there were some issues with one of its ads. I clicked the original Autotrader link, to get the ad number for my report: gone! "This listing has been deleted by the seller". Guess he got cold feet and moved on, or something.
So the scammers are out there, still, trolling. We didn't bite. I guess he figured there'd be someone willing to toss many thousand dollars into Google Checkout for a great deal on a sight-unseen Z06, that person confident they'd have 7 days to get to Wisconsin to check out the car before the sale was finalized (which: they would not have). But that wouldn't be us.
But the ad looked good. The car was in Wisconsin, had a VIN # listed, CARFAX report available, the owner's email id and phone number listed, all on the up and up. I agreed to call the guy and see about it.
Hmmm...the phone number listed didn't work. Maybe a misprint.
But I was doubly wary. That car was priced too low...way too low. Its seller isn't someone's aunt who inherited the car and posted it in the local paper, but someone who's savvy enough to post on Autotrader, knows to list the VIN, etc. And so, is entirely capable of knowing that car's real value. And now, this second strike...a "bogus" or at least non-working, contact number.
I went to work on the VIN next, googling "decode GM VIN number" to get to the official GM site for their codes. GM? Corvette? 08? LS7 V-8? Built in Bowling Green, KY? All these checked out, looked legit. The seller had a CARFAX to share, and of course, there's a CARFAX link right on AutoTrader to check it out. I linked there and typed in the VIN.
Zero records found.
Okay...hmmm. There should be something; the car was sold, was registered, paid sales tax, was serviced by someone, somewhere, was licensed. Something. But this car had no records at all. That's troubling.
I emailed the seller about 10am, telling him the car looked great, and I had a few questions for him (actually, at this point, more than a few), but the phone number he listed in the ad wasn't working.
He mailed back about 4pm, all cheery. The car was still available, he has the clear title, it's in excellent condition, no ding/scratches, all original, never smoked in. He thought he had it sold for a bit more, however that buyer's financing fell through, so he posted a sell-it-quick price since at this point it's the car or his house. So he needs a cash buyer, he says, and if I'm going to be financing then he can't wait that long. He didn't mention the bogus phone number I'd mentioned.
Cash only, eh? Oh boy. (That's not necessarily a deal-stopper, but with the other stuff so far, you can start to see where this is going).
Then, there was what came next. In this not-cheap purchase, you'd think there'd be talk of where the car could be seen, what were my questions about its condition, when did I want to take a look at it, and so forth. He didn't talk about any of that.
What he did talk about was that he had signed up with Google Checkout for protection on the sale, and if I'd email him my Google information, they could set up the transaction. (He also said this would allow me time to come and test drive the car, and provide a 7-day inspection period before they would release the funds to him...I'd missed that part yesterday, and it's complete hogwash, of course).
At that point, I was done, and chuckling. He's a scammer, all right, this is a fake car/offer/whatever.
Out of curiosity, I thought to check out the CARFAX report image he'd sent along with 27 pictures of the car (that he probably got off Ebay last month, when some legit person was selling a snow-bound Corvette). I started looking at it, basically a screen shot of a CARFAX screen display, with much of the images "X"d for not downloading properly. This report said the car had *4* records; how could that be, I'd just run it myself that morning? The four records were all for original sale, and follow-on maintenance, at a Chevy dealer in Puyallup, WA. Really? Oh, so he musta moved to Wisconsin since.
What's that VIN # again? Hmmm...I looked at the report he'd sent, it was off by one digit/letter from what I checked from the AutoTrader ad this morning, an "X" replaced the "5" that it had for the "check digit" value. I tried that new number at CARFAX: "incorrect VIN entered", meaning the check-digit didn't match the rest of the number. So it was a fake VIN on the report, but I mostly knew that already.
One final note: one of the few things that did print on his "CARFAX" report / screen printout was a blue ad box in the left column. It read, "to find other great values in the Clearwater, FL area, contact....". Florida? Um, no.
So I called my wife about 4:45pm to relay this last part of the discussion. We'd been texting off/on a couple of times since that morning, and were already very suspicious that this was a hoax/scam. We concluded that it would be a good karma/samaritan/right thing to do to let AutoTrader know there were some issues with one of its ads. I clicked the original Autotrader link, to get the ad number for my report: gone! "This listing has been deleted by the seller". Guess he got cold feet and moved on, or something.
So the scammers are out there, still, trolling. We didn't bite. I guess he figured there'd be someone willing to toss many thousand dollars into Google Checkout for a great deal on a sight-unseen Z06, that person confident they'd have 7 days to get to Wisconsin to check out the car before the sale was finalized (which: they would not have). But that wouldn't be us.
3 comments:
two things to remember brother, when you get your vet. your earlier heel and toe downshift practice from when you used to race Vdubs might not be advisable with your new equipment. secondly, you've already contributed to burning out a clutch on one sports car in the genre, DO NOT REPEAT that experience!
LOL, well the heel/toe downshifting still applies, it's just that the Z06 would be moving at about 8x the old V-dub rate...likely not performing such on the street anytime soon. Oh dang, that was a shame to do burnouts in a Jag...what a gorgeous auto. Um, yes, all such very expensive to repair. I'm a lot easier on the equipment these days!
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