Saved someone from a scam last week

[speeder]

Well, not completely but here is the story:

My buddy calls me who has been intermittently checking in regarding his friend who wants to buy a sports car and have it converted to an electric car. There is some guy or place around who converts cars to electric for a lot of $$. His friend, a woman, has been looking at everything from older 911s to Ferrari 308s to IDK what. All she needs is a clean body and good chassis, the running condition doesn't matter at all since it's all getting scrapped.

Soooo, he calls me last week to tell me that she is buying a mid-'60s Jag E-type from Sweden and that she needs to put the purchase $$ in escrow w some shipping company to do the transaction. There is an obvious BS story about the car being in customs, etc. I tell him in no uncertain terms that this is a scam. She really wants this car and wants badly to believe that it's a legit deal.

To make a long story long, we wind up on a 4-way call w her, him and some supposed agent from the shipping company on the phone. I ask him where he is and he says a town in Sweden, says the car is in customs lot in Stockholm. I tell him that I have someone in Stockholm who I want to put eyes on the car and he plays along. The guy has a very obvious South Asian accent and I don't believe that he's in Sweden. He gives me the name of the transport company and tells me to google them.

After we hang up, I tell her that I still believe 99.9999% that she is being scammed. Of course, the car is priced under market and she found it online. When I pressed her a little, it turns out that she had already sent the "seller" $5k to lock down the purchase. She was psychologically and financially invested in wanting to believe that it was real.

I felt like the bad guy giving her the bad news that her $$ was gone and that there was no Jag in customs in Sweden. I told her to offer to do the deal but w an escrow company of her choosing and that if they refused, she had her answer. She did and they did.

So at least she did not send the balance to the phony escrow company and was grateful to me. Mostly bummed because she thought she was buying an E-type, didn't really care about the $5k. I can't believe that any otherwise intelligent person would fall for that one.

[Bill Douglas]

Good skills.

LOL I have a sister a bit like this woman.

[mepstein]

There are a lot of people who get caught up in these kind of scams. They are not stupid, just trusting and not familiar with all the different scams out there. I would tell people to set up their own escrow, don't count on the "seller" to handle your money.

[kach22i]

There was a day when we didn't have to be weary of scams, except door to door traveling vacuum cleaner salesmen, and aluminum siding salesmen, and they actual provided the service or item.

You really do need this set of Encyclopedias, it's for your children, you love your children don't you - they are the future of the world.


And look look how we came out anyway.

[sc_rufctr]

Thankfully it was only $5k. There was a guy in the 911 forum who lost around 25k buying a car from someone in the US.

[masraum]

Wow, that sucks that she's out the $5k, but at least you managed to catch her before it got worse.