Scammin’ the Scammer

You’ve seen it before: an online ad appears offering a classic car represented as being in beautiful condition, for an unbelievably low price. When contacted, the seller always has some story about having to move to England, but will ship the car free to your location.. Yeah, right.. If it seems too good to be true then, it’s likely, well, too good to be true.

I encountered such a situation recently when my shopmate forwarded me a Craigslist link offering a nice looking 1962 Mercedes 190SL for $16,500. Even IF I don’t closely follow the classic Mercedes market, I’m savvy enough to know that values for 190SL’s have recently skyrocketed, following on the coat-tails of their rarer step brother, the 300SL (these beautiful cars now routinely bringing strong 7 figure prices), and proving the old axiom “A rising tide raises all boats”. Sure enough, a quick search through eBay and Hemmings listings proved that even a beater, “good restoration candidate” 190SL easily changes hands for $50-75,000, while nicely restored examples can easily bring in $150k.

With my “Fake-dar” alarm ringing loudly in my head, I decided to pursue this “unbelievable” ad, just to see how I could mess with the seller.

As might have been expected, by late afternoon of the first posting day on Craigslist, the Mercedes listing had been “Flagged for Removal”, and in fact had disappeared from the website. Not to worry, though, as a quick search turned up the exact same listing (same price, pictures, and cryptic description) on 4 or 5 other online cars-for-sale websites, all citing the identical email contact info.

I responded to this listing, found on a Florida-based website:

To confirm my assumption that this was a bogus ad, I spent a good hour on Google, convinced that the pictures and description for this ad had been “lifted” from a legitimate ad somewhere on the web.  My diligence paid off, as I finally located the “real” listing, on eBay, indicating that the car had recently sold for the sum of $72,000 (the listing including several less-than-flattering images of the car which were “tastefully” omitted from the scammer’s listing).

I decided to portray myself as an eager buyer, using a fictional email address.

The rest of the story?  Well, read for yourself…

At this point, the scammer sent a very official looking “Sales Contract” from a company purported to be in Florida:

I Google’d the address shown on the contract, and sure enough, it really was a used car lot in Florida:

Wouldn’t you know it… the street image actually showed the dealer’s sign, with a phone number prominently displayed.  Naturally, I called the number to inquire about shipment of “my” Mercedes 190SL, and, not surprisingly, the company knew nothing about such a transaction, and assured me they don’t perform those types of services!

Nevertheless, I added a fake signature to the Seller’s “Contract” and submitted it.  In short order, I received the following “invoice”, which surprisingly listed a bank account holder, including name and address, in Tennessee.  Hmm.. the plot thickens.. a guy in Canada lists a car for sale on Austin Craigslist, then uses a “dealership” in Florida to handle the escrow account, which is at a bank in Nashville?  Nothing fishy about that I suppose:

At this point, I decided to see just how long I could stall this scammer with excuses, to give me time to contact the bank in Nashville, as well as the FBI Internet Fraud department.

Finally, after stalling the perp for some 2 weeks, I made up a fake bank wire transfer document, then “juiced” it up in Photoshop to make it look like a faxed copy:

I had one final trick up my sleeve however.  Before the erstwhile seller had time to discover that the wire transfer was bogus, I decided to make up a short video advising the “perp” that he had been busted, and that his entire computer had been compromised.  I disguised the video to look like an Adobe Acrobat file, and sent him this final email with a link to the wire transfer “pdf”  (for a good laugh, feel free to click on the link.. the video is harmless, but states otherwise)

Of course, I never received another response from the seller.  But, just for good measure, while the above communication was in process, I had created yet another anonymous email address and had inquired to the seller about the car,  under that address, just a day or so after advising him the wire transfer had been sent.  Naturally, the seller advised me that the car was still available for sale.  The email below was my final parting shot to this scammer.  And, sure enough, within 24 hours, I was unable to find any further on line listing regarding this car or this seller.  Mission accomplished!