Steer clear of scams!

Criminals are targeting cashstrapped motorists with bogus online adverts for temptingly cheap used cars that don’t exist, motor industry experts have warned. Conmen behind used car scams are setting up fictitious web-based ‘sham dealership’ websites, luring victims in with cut-price deals, then seeking to convince car buyers to pay for the phantom vehicles over the phone.

One victim was snared by a social media advert for a 2016 mini Countryman worth

£10,000, but advertised for just £3,870. Details of the alleged frauds were revealed this week by the respected Car Dealer magazine website (cardealermagazine.co.uk).

it says scammers, believed to be based abroad, but purporting to have dealerships in scotland, are creating bogus social media adverts to target potential car buyers, especially in london and the Home Counties, betting it’s unlikely they will travel hundreds of miles to check the cars out in person. But experts say it is spreading rapidly around the country.

Car Dealer magazine editor and founder James Baggott said: ‘Using fake websites, sometimes cloning the names and details of legitimate car dealerships, the criminals use a confidence con to part unsuspecting buyers from their cash.’

scammers told one potential buyer that they would have to pay for the used car in full before delivery: ‘i saw the advert on social media for a car that was incredibly cheap so i wanted to snap up the deal.

‘They asked for a full payment and said they would deliver it to me.’ it was only when the victim checked the bogus dealership’s name online that they spotted earlier warnings by Car Dealer magazine and

walked away. legitimate dealerships have reported ‘hundreds’ of car buyers turning up from the south who’d paid for phantom cars.

mr Baggott said: ‘Other firms told of families travelling to remote scottish towns with their children to pick up cars, only to find out when they got there, the cars didn’t exist.’