[SpawnyWhippet]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Can anyone confirm that those VIN's look authentic or not? I couldn't start scraping off the thick coverage of paint around the smugglers box VIN number to check that it hasn't just been welded in. It does look very irregular for a factory VIN though.

I paid the deposit in cash, so ebay is unlikely to help. Do I have a legal or police recourse to get my deposit back if the car is misrepresented? Although from what I have read here, it seems he would just keep my deposit and ignore any legal action I take.