7:25 am, January 11, 2023
A gang of fraudulent car dealers claim to have made more than £100,000 by cloning the business of a legitimate trader, leaked messages have revealed.
WhatsApp exchanges obtained by Car Dealer show scammers boasting about the amount of money they have bagged by running the scheme.
The latest victim of the crime is Russ Denton, whose company Mascot Automotive Ltd, was cloned by scammers.
The con artists have been using his firm’s name and business number to advertise vehicles on a fake website and Instagram.
The cars are listed using images stolen from other Auto Trader ads and are all well below normal market prices.
In messages seen by Car Dealer, the proprietors of the scam openly mocked one ‘customer’ who called out their scam.
He told them that he had made north of £100,000 by running the scheme before adding ‘lol’ in a separate message.
Later on, he claimed that even if his website was taken down, he would continue to trade under a different domain.
‘I’m worried about angry customers arriving at my door’
The fake website, mascot-automotive.com, claims that the outfit has premises at Unit 4 Newhall Road Industrial Estate, Sheffield, which is actually an empty unit available to lease.
In reality, Denton sells within the trade and his business does not have commercial premises.
To make matters worse, his home address is listed on the firm’s Companies House page, leading to one visit from an angry ‘customer’.
He says that he has contacted both the police and instagram over the issue but neither have investigated.
‘It is a simple but very, very, very effective scheme they’ve put together,’ Denton told Car Dealer.
‘Effectively they have set up an Instagram page, which has actually been running since 2014, but they’ve built up their followers and then in November they changed the name of the account, which can be done very easily, to Mascot Automotive Limited, which is my company.
‘They set a website up to match up with it, which again is easy, and then just stole photos of cars from Auto Trader.
‘The cars are obviously too cheap but the website does look really kosher. Having said that, if you ring them you just get an automated message.
‘You can only actually deal with them on Instagram or via WhatsApp.’
(The fake Instagram account set up by scammers)
He added: ‘The company is registered to my home address and they are basically using my company name and number.
‘I’ve had a lot of messages from people and I’ve had to tell them that they’ve been scammed and it’s not me.
‘It’s got to the point now that last week the inevitable happened and someone actually turned up at my door asking where their car and money were.
‘Thankfully he was reasonably understanding but what if someone doesn’t give me the chance to explain?
‘My wife and child live with me and I’ve had to tell them to stop answering the door in case something happens.
‘I’ve installed security cameras and a Ring doorbell as I am worried about what might happen.
‘Unfortunately, the police don’t want to know and Instagram are impossible to get hold of. I reported it every day for about 20 days but it’s just an automated response.
‘The police just tell you to get in touch with Action Fraud, which is a reporting body that works for the police, but they turned around and told me there wasn’t enough evidence.
‘I’m now at the point where I just don’t know what to do.’
(Fake reviews on the scammers’ site)
How to spot a fake used car dealer website
This is far from the first time a scheme of this nature has popped up in recent months.
Last month we reported that Criminal dealer JDM Cars had dragged legitimate trader Jim Reid into its web of lies by cloning his company.
That followed reports of similar scams involving the likes of AD Car Sales and Miller Car Sales Ltd.
On the latter two occasions, Car Dealer called the numbers on the websites, with the same person answering on both occasions.
We attempted to call the number on the Mascot Automotive sham site but were greeting only with an automated message.
There are several ways to spot a fake dealership from a real one but the five points below are among the best:
- The cars are advertised at suspiciously cheap prices
- The pictures of the cars are all taken in different locations
- The address does not exist on Google Maps when checked in Streetview
- The pictures of the apparent directors are fake and stolen from stock image sites – use Google Lens tool to check
- When you call the number, they want payment of a deposit before you are allowed to see the car
If you have suffered a similar experience at the hands of scammers, get in touch and let us know.
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