I have recently been in the market for my first car and have made a few enquiries about some ridiculously cheap cars. As a result I've been targeted by this common scam three times!

What happens is that you see an incredible car on eBay (or any other automobile sites where private sellers can list their car ads) for an incredibly cheap price. The description and pictures are often stolen from genuine sellers as I  discovered when I found the same car listed in two places, one saying it was $10,000 the other saying it was $30,000 (of course with the seller selling the car for $30,000 actually allowed seller to come in and inspect the vehicle). You make an inquiry asking if you can come and inspect the car or asking why it is so cheap. In about one days time you will receive an email from the scammer that follows a very set template.

The scammer will tell you the car is no in the country because they have moved overseas. They tell you that they are selling it cheap because they cannot sell their Australian right hand drive car in the lift hand drive country or something to that effect. They then give a brief description of the car and ask you to reply if you're still interested.

The first time I was targeted by this scam it was quite obviously not legitimate, red flag were popping up everywhere. I decided to reply anyway and ask how I would import the car. Usually in the second email you are told that the car will be shipped by a third party shipping and escrow service who will be the middle-men for the cars and the money. They ask you to make a deposit of 50% of the cars value to the sipping company and pay the rest after the car is imported.

I was directed to the site euro-autotransport.com

It has some interesting photos of fake shipping trucks and some generic boat photos. Also notice the fake VeriSign tag. When you click it pop up a fake web page with and imitation address bar making it look like you are at the VeriSign site, if you copy and paste the URL into a real browser however you will see that the page in non-existent.

I replied again to humor myself asking for additional pictures of the car including one of the seller next to the car holding a current newspaper. To this I received no reply.

Always use only eBay approved escrow services for expensive items. If ever in doubt of the authenticity of the seller request that they send a photo of themselves with the product and a current newspaper to make sure they are legit, most genuine seller will be happy to comply. And most importantly, use common sense. If it's too good to be true, it probably is.