Dealer issues warning over 'sophisticated' scam
Dealers need to be aware of a sophisticated con involving trade-ins, says Darryn Caulfield, managing director of Auto 66 in Hamilton.
He warns the scammers pretend to buy a vehicle from a private seller on Trade Me and then send the seller a purchase agreement to buy it.
Part of the process is getting the seller’s personal information, such as the driver’s licence details, bank-account details, personal phone numbers and so on.
All of this happens before the scammers phone car dealers masquerading as a private seller wanting to on-sell to the registered motor-vehicle trader at a fair price.
When the legitimate dealer asks the scammer, who is pretending to be the actual owner, for details, everything about the owner and the vehicle stacks up.
Caulfield says dealers believe they are doing business with a legitimate seller and pay the agreed price into the scammer’s New Zealand bank account – only to find that when they go to pick up the vehicle that they have been canned. “The money’s gone and the dealer doesn’t have a car.”
He told Autofile Online the scammers also convince the vehicle’s legitimate owner they will purchase the vehicle, but need a couple of weeks before they can pay for it so they ask that the seller to remove his or her Trade Me listing.
“Dealers pay their money into a Kiwi bank account, but the bank has informed us the money gets transferred overseas pretty rapidly,” says Caulfield. “They are using more than one bank account. It’s most likely the accounts have been hacked.”
“I know of at least four traders who have been caught by the scammers, including us, but there could be a whole lot more. This could be huge and hurting a lot of dealers. No one knows who’s doing this and no one has stopped them yet. My thoughts are that there are going to be more dealers burnt.
“They’re looking for specialised vehicles for sale on Trade Me, pretending to buy them and getting the seller to take the listing off. They then get the seller to sign a purchase agreement before saying they will collect the car in a couple of weeks. Then they pretend to be the seller and offer the vehicle to dealers. The scam is very sophisticated and clever. We fell for it because the sale stacks up – it’s how dealers buy cars on a daily basis.”
Caulfield notes the scammers registered a business in June or July on the companies register. “They are going about the scam the right way to drag money out of dealers. They’re also targeting the right traders with the right vehicles. I think the con is being run by someone who has worked in the industry because it’s just too professional.”
He adds the con artists use a New Zealand cellphone number and have a good understanding of how dealers purchase stock from private sellers. Auto 66 has lost money as a result of the scam and has contacted police. The company has yet to lay a formal complaint.
