9:27 am, January 26, 2023
Another scam used car dealer trying to con buyers with a fake website and vehicles for sale has been uncovered.
Car Dealer was tipped off by a worried member of the public to Winmex Car Sales Limited, which is passing itself off to be a trustworthy car dealer.
The fake website has the same hallmarks as other scamming operations investigated by Car Dealer last year.
Winmex purports to be based on a business park in Broxburn. It uses the business phone number +44 131 618 7377, which is very similar to the numbers used by fake car dealerships set up in the past.
It also uses the same registered office address as a genuine car dealer, and when Car Dealer contacted the latter, it told us it had reported Winmex Car Sales Limited to the police.
At first glance, the Winmex website seems to be genuine, with customer reviews of previously sold second-hand cars.
However, on closer inspection the website appears to be a front.
Cars listed on the ‘inventory’ section are priced at thousands below normal retail prices. The photographs of the cars are all taken in different locations – another sign that there is no physical showroom.
A Google search for the company and its premises yields no results either.
Moreover, under the ‘about us’ page Winmex Car Sales lists the employees working for its company.
But again, all is not what it seems, as a Google image search proves the picture used for Winmex’s sales manager, Stefan Leng, is really Dirk Kreuter, a German author and sales trainer.
Another photo on Winmex’s website appears to have been lifted from Kreuter’s official website.
When Car Dealer contacted Winmex about a Vauxhall Insignia it has for sale, Leng replied to emails assuring us the company was genuine and encouraged us to purchase the car as the transaction was just like buying goods from Amazon.
Leng told us: ‘With Amazon, you see the product, add it to the basket, pay for it, it is delivered to you, you receive it and check it, and if you don’t like it, you send it back and get a full refund in your bank account. Buying from us, the steps are the same, that’s exactly how we work.
‘Buying from us, you are 100 per cent safe.’
Leng also said the company could deliver the car within a 700-mile radius for just £90 and will honour a 30-day returns policy with full reimbursement. The email is also in exactly the same format as those by the previous scam car dealers we have uncovered.
[Video below: Car Dealer catches a conman on video during one of our previous investigations]
The discovery is the latest in a string of investigations carried out by Car Dealer.
Our stories have also been covered by national media, with Car Dealer’s editor-in-chief James Baggott set to appear on the BBC’s Morning Live consumer programme on Friday, January 27, talking about the cons.
In an earlier investigation, What Car?’s Jim Holder told Car Dealer that if a deal looks too good to be true it usually is.
‘If they refuse to let you even see the car before you send a deposit, then walk away,’ he said.
Previous Car Dealer scam investigations:
- Conmen have cloned a used car dealer and are scamming buyers online
- Criminals set up ANOTHER con car dealer website to catch unwary used car buyers out
- Criminal dealer JDM Cars drags legitimate trader Jim Reid into its web of lies
- Scammers taunt used car dealer claiming to have made £100,000 by cloning his business
Main image: At first glance, Winmex Car Sales Limited’s website appears to be genuine
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