Especially those selling (via Autotrader?)

This isn't limited to Scoobs, although we know of one that was taken last week and used in a ram-raid.

This is what happens, in a nutshell.

Bloke advertises car in trader.
Receives call from prospective "buyer"
"buyer" turns up, and examines car.
Buyer takes car for test drive (with seller sat at side in fps)
Both return to seller's address
"buyer" explains that he thinks exhaust is blowing :eek: - yeah, we all know how they sound
Seller, examines exhaust, when buyer jumps in still-running car and makes off
Car then used in ram-raid.

More details are available, but I aren't putting them on here. Those West Yorks scoobs that know me, know what to do.

BuRR,

I know of someone who was selling an EVO 7. Bloke turns up, goes for test drive e.t.c. e.t.c. then hands over Bankers Draft...drives off in EVO.

Bankers Draft is a fake...Insurance company won't pay up as the owner "gave the potential buyer the keys". The person is now left with no car and £25k down.

There must be something you can do to stop this? I guess the only thing to do is ring the bank and check if it's real?

Tony

Thanks for the warning...!

Hi BuRR - hope you enjoyed your hols, nice weather mate anyway.

cheers for the warning.

Tony_W - fake bankers drafts:eek: I thought that was the safest form of money transaction, just goes to show. Poor guy with the EVO, ****ty UK at it's best again then[img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

shunty

When I received a banker's draft for 2.5k for my old Pug GTi, I phoned the bank while the guy waited, to check it was genuine. Never seen one before or since, how would I know? Trusting 25k to one... no comment.

Or you could get them to come to the bank with you while you deposit it.

Even going with them to the bank is no guarantee! Read a story on here a few years back about a guy who did this, handed over the keys to his £35k M3 Evo Convertible and then got a phonecall from the bank saying that the draft was fake .. too late. No comeback at all apparently.

Andrew.

Saw something on Crimewatch UK a year or so ago,
2 guys buying high performance cars and paying with dodgy bankers drafts.
Got caught buying a NSX from a guy who had cctv fitted in his house...!

Best bet - when selling get potential buyer to come with you to bank and put money into account - saves you counting and also no worries with fake notes.

I had a similar thing happen to me with a fake bankers draft about 2 years ago. A guy bought our Discovery with a bankers draft and all seemed fine (as these things do!). He came to collect on a Friday evening after work so I couldn't check with the bank. Anyway to cut a very long story short, a few days after (yes, after the bank had deposited the money in our account!) they said it was actually stolen and took the money back out of our account.

As someone said earlier, the bank claim they are not liable (how I'm not sure, how come we pay if their security is pants!) and the insurance won't pay out as you handed over the keys!!!!!

Luckily for us the police happened to be doing a stake out of the "dodgy geezers" a couple of days after when they left our car and another to come back to. Then they grabbed them! We then had to recover our car, change locks etc etc but it certainly beat losing everything. It turns out a whole book of bank drafts had been stolen and the gang had been doing this for a couple of years. I was lucky but what about all the others :(

The happy ending to the story is that we sold the Disco to a genuine buyer shortly after, and this time did an electronic transfer directly from their account to ours and released the car when the bank confirmed the money was in our account. The only way I'll do things in future!!!

Rich

Best way to do any transaction is to go to your bank (or their bank) and transfer the money, doesnt take long and only costs about 10 quid, nice n safe :D

Tony:D