Hot on the trail of a caravan scammer
Sometimes to catch a rat, you have to act like one. I’d never registered a fake email address or lied so much in my life, but I did it gladly this week as I targeted an overseas fraudster who preys on the vulnerable and elderly.
After speaking with a Hamilton couple who were duped for $25,000 in a bogus caravan sale, I decided to see if the seller – who goes by the name Allan Watt – would sell me this lovely Jayco 23ft caravan he was advertising.
With the help of police Detective Simon Eckersley of Waikato’s corporate fraud unit, I put enough questions to Watt to prove he was running a scam.
It started by inventing an alias and making a phonecall to the number listed on the classified advertisement – which was answered by a man called ‘‘Anthony’’ who told me ‘‘yes’’, the caravan was still available, it belonged to his colleague, and he’d ask him to give me a call.
This is warning sign one. Anthony is the middle man. We’ll never see a phone number for Watt.
Sure enough, I soon got a call from an unknown number who said he was Allan Kirk Watt and that he was in the UK, so couldn’t deal in person, but would email me images of the vehicle. Warning sign two.
‘‘I am sorry but an inspection is not possible because the caravan is already sealed in a cargo ship container, I can make the transaction only through [shipping company] Priority Cargo,’’ he said in an email on September 23.
‘‘My wife is from London and we just found out that her father has throat cancer so we left on short notice to spend some time with her father. He might live years, months or even days . . . you know how it is with the cancer and we need money for his treatment.’’
On the contrary, Eckersley suspected Watt was in eastern Europe – more specifically Russia, and said the phone number on the classified advertisement could be traced to New South Wales.
The clincher was when I asked Watt for the licence plate number of this caravan.
Eckersley told me the licence plate Watt provided matched that of a caravan owned by Gore couple Richard and Rachael Gutschlag – who were oblivious to its impending sale.
He said Watt likely ripped the photos, licence plate and description of the clean vehicle from an online Trade Me advertisement before collecting more than $50,000 in bogus sales.
Before scamming the Hamilton couple, Watt conned a Whangaparaoa couple into sending him $25,000 for a different caravan.
Warning sign four: the Gutschlags paid about $40,000 for the caravan in a private sale on Trade Me, although Watt was advertising it for an unbelievable $16,900.
‘‘It’s far too cheap, that should set alarm bells ringing,’’ Eckersley said.
Just when I thought I could get Watt back on the phone and ask him questions about this licence plate anomaly, the communication went dead. Perhaps he knows New Zealand media are on to him, or maybe he simply has a nose for dishonesty.
Either way, it seems the scammer is avoiding us.
Watt, or so he claims to be, has stolen the details and licence plate number of a caravan Gutschlag owns and he has been listing it for sale in classified sections of newspapers.
‘‘We wouldn’t need to cross paths, put it that way,’’ Gutschlag said.
‘‘I’m a reasonably big fella and I’m still playing rugby.’’
He first learned of the scam from Detective Simon Eckersley of Waikato’s corporate fraud unit, who checked who owned the licence plate Watt was dishing out to his victims.
Gutschlag said he and his wife Rachael saved for ‘‘years and years’’ to buy their Jayco 23ft vehicle, and said it was unfair Watt was ripping off those who had done the same.
‘‘You don’t do that. Scamming elderly people for money is not good at all.’’
The fact Watt was claiming he needed money from the sale of the caravan for his father-in-law’s cancer treatment also didn’t sit well with Gutschlag.
‘‘When you’re using somebody else’s illness, which is probably made up anyhow, it’s not right.’’
Gutschlag said the vehicle certainly wasn’t sealed in a shipping container at a transit company in Dunedin, as Watt claimed, and reiterated that it was not for sale.
In fact, the Gore couple are looking forward to taking the vehicle up to Central Otago for some fishing this weekend.