7:34 am, January 28, 2023
The BBC has produced a special report on the impact of scammers setting up fake car dealerships, with input from Car Dealer’s James Baggott.
Car Dealer’s editor-in-chief appeared on BBC One’s Morning Live on Friday (Jan 27) to discuss how consumers can spot online cons.
His views were used as part of a feature that described how crooks managed to con one customer out of thousands of pounds.
It follows several stories by Car Dealer in recent months about similar schemes that have been set up online.
The likes of Winmex Car Sales Limited, JDM Cars and Millers Car Sales have all been found to be fake, following investigations by Car Dealer.
Other scams have included AD Car Sales and Auto-Promotions.
In another case – that of Mascot Automotive – scammers even taunted a used car dealer, claiming to have made £100,000 by cloning his business.
‘These are incredibly convincing. They’ve got contact details, they’ve got a map of where they say they’re based, there’s even reviews from customers. They look like a legitimate business,’ Car Dealer’s James Baggott told Morning Live presenter Rav Wilding.
‘Look for reviews on other websites like Auto Trader and Google. If they haven’t got those, you need to be worried,’ he advised viewers.
‘Any main dealer will be more than happy to take a credit card payment over the phone, so if they are asking you to send it via direct transfer to an account that you’ve never done business with, that is another thing that you should be really worried about.
‘I would [advise people to check Companies House] but with a little bit of caution. Some of the businesses have spoofed legitimate companies.
‘The last thing I would say is that every single car that we’ve seen that has led to one of these customers being scammed has been advertised at less than 50 per cent market rate.
‘If you see one that is 75 per cent or 50 per cent cheaper than the other cars you’re looking at, the chances of it being a con are incredibly high.’
You can watch the full show here, with the used car item featuring at 18:21.
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