Car buyers scammed by online con linked to Scotland

MOTORISTS buying second-hand cars have lost thousands of pounds to a sophisticated fake online vehicle website.

The bogus business looked real by selling vehicles with MOTs genuinely on sale elsewhere, using a legitimate former car dealership’s address in Fife.

It even used faked photographs of professionallooking staff.

consumer groups have warned buyers to take precautions as the scam could be repeated – and the fake site Auto-Promotions has been shut down after a BBC investigation.

Among the victims was Pietro Pagliuca from West Yorkshire, who transferred almost £4,000 to Auto-Promotions for a second-hand Nissan Qashqai after his old one broke down.

After a phone chat with someone purporting to be the sales director, he went ahead with the purchase. he was even more reassured when he saw what he thought was a company stamp on an invoice.

‘I honestly didn’t have doubts about them. it all looked legit, and a lot of companies deliver stuff these days,’ he told the BBC. he planned to use the car to take out his elderly mother, who has mobility issues – and the pair had pooled their entire savings.

But the car never arrived. ‘i feel let down, annoyed and a bit embarrassed,’ said Mr Pagliuca. he reported the online transaction to his bank, and earlier this month they gave him half the cash back.

The name Auto-Promotions was taken from a former legitimate car deal ership. The family firm has nothing to do with the fake site under investigation.

The BBC found images of ‘staff’ included a former Financial Times journalist and a hollywood actor who had no idea their face was used. There were 2,969 reports of online vehicle fraud in england, Wales and Northern ireland in 2021, up 21 per cent from 2,459 in 2019, Action Fraud said. This cost consumers almost £9.5million last year.

Mike Andrews, head of ecrime at National Trading Standards, said: ‘To have an entire website set up to defraud consumers is very unusual.’

Angry customers even turned up at the garage in Fife, whose address has been falsely used by the scammers.

The Auto-Promotions site was active from March this year to early September, when it was shut down by police after the probe.

But the scammers remain at large, say the BBC.

‘I didn’t have any doubts’