Buyers beware: Scam dealerships

Great post and plan. This is exactly the type of proactive measure we should get from the club and CT makes an excellent platform for making members aware.👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Agree completely. Well done Ro.

yes good idea. +1 to above two posts

Thanks Ro, a good start to fight the scourge of the scammers

Just had a look at the three sites. Only the first one loads. The site is very believable but the tell tale sign is it is closed Saturday and Sunday. Although I know that area and there are one or two dealers around there.

Hi everyone, Sadly we have had another report of a member being caught by this scam and being over £6,000 out of pocket. Pleas be vigilant and also have a read of the article on page 96 in the November issue of the Club magazine which has further information and advice on this topic. 

I see they are using the same photos of their "staff" that were on the Brett Caravans scam website, possibly the same scammers under a different name?

The one thing the scammers have in their favour is that of the prospective buyer being keen not to miss out on a good deal. Hopefully, from the scammer's point of view, this will cause the buyer to drop his/her guard and be drawn in.  The safest course of action is to stay focussed in enquiring about the vehicle, ask about viewing it, and get the registration number, body colour, engine capacity and whether diesel or petrol.  This can be checked for authenticity on the government's website. Not entirely foolproof, but will refuse to accept a fictitious vehicle.  And scammers do not like thorough enquiries.

Above all, be ready to lose a purchase rather than risking loss of your cash.

There are all sorts of scammers out there - I was recently looking to replace my 3 year old tow car.  I went round to a load of different suppliers - and every last one told lies about the suitability of their cars for towing!  I ended up doing a decent deal - or so I thought with a replacement for mine - I was told the deal included 3 free services and number plates (I needed three).  The deal was to include tow bar and the car was to be ready for a planned trip.  Ha Ha!  It arrived 2 days late with no number plate.  I had only gone about 200 miles when the buzzer warned me the car needed service.  I had bought it with a little more than 12,000 on the clock and foolishly assumed it would be serviced for a while!  So my trip kept being interrupted by the service buzzer which wasn't very relaxing!  So when I got home I booked it in for it's "free service" perfectly accepted by the person who booked me in.  Come time to collect the car I am asked to pay over £300 for the pleasure!!  They pointed out the service plan wasn't recorded on the contract - well I had been sitting there for 2 hours waiting for the tow bar problem to be solved - and then had to reschedule!  It turns out that the salesman made promises the dealership wasn't prepared to honour - and he was no longer employed there!  Watchout anyone who is buying an Audi in Doncaster as that is where he is now!  

After pointing out that I had booked in for the free service and everything and asked who would expect to need to service their car after 200 miles.  I also pointed out that I was internet savvy and perfectly capable of using social media to berate the place - they finally offered for me to pay the £50 odd for the spare parts fitted at the service.  To give her her due the person handling the whole thing was clearly very embarrassed - but it was a true case of "Buyer Beware".  I might have been a bit more careful to check everything if I had been buying from some obscure garage or privately but this was a Mitsubishi dealership!  

Obviously this isn't as bad as the cases Rowena highlighted but it was a lesson to me!  

A lesson for all those that are looking to purchase a second hand car, Pippah. Hope that it's running like a dream for you now