Friday, July 8, 2011

SCAM ALERT: "The bus is in Great Falls, MT"

Lately, we've been seeing the same scam on several websites including Craigslist.org and TheSamba.com. Beware. Sometimes it's a split and sometimes it's a bay window. Oddly, they use the same "The bus is in Great Falls, MT" and "my unit has been sent back to Afghanistan". I saw the same line last year in an email:

Here's the email I got back tonight from an ad on TheSamba. We got one a few weeks ago from a similar "great deal":

From jones smith

Hello,

My 1970 Volkswagen BusVanagon WESTFALIA is in great shape.This bus has never had any accident. It was always garaged and never smoked in. Never been damaged. It has no scratches, dents or something like that. No mechanical problems, no accidents. Clean title in hand. It does not need anything additional to function.
VIN:     2302127548
My asking price for this bus at the moment  is $2850.
The price is low because I need to sell it asap (my unit has been sent back to Afghanistan).
The bus is in Great Falls, MT - at my base and in case it gets sold I will take care of shipping.

Let me know if you are interested, email back.

5 comments:

Anonymous

This is so true. I bought a 70 Westy on E Bay, everything went great, then I saw my bus for sale again on Samba, E Bay, and a couple of other places using the same pictures, and discriptions. It was for sale in England, L.A., etc... So be very careful when buying online.

Gary Marrs

Ludwig's Drivers

I accept the fact that this ad (and many others like it) are scams, but I don't understand what the purpose of such a scam is. Do they try to talk you into wiring them the money before you even see the bus? I mean, what's the next step the sucker is supposed to take?

Alright,
whc03grady.

Big Blue's Driver

I'm pretty sure the next step is, "We're going to need X amount to hold it for you" or some line. You send them $500 or whatever for them to not sell it until you can go look at it. That's only fair, right!

Big Blue's Driver

By the way, gotta love Everett at TheSamba. He just sent through this email:

You recently contacted a seller on the site below regarding an ad for:
1970 Volkswagen BusVanagon WESTFALIA at:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1162267

This seller has been identified as a scammer. Please do not respond to their messages.
Any further contact from them should be ignored, regardless of the content of their email(s).
They have been banned from selling on the site.

Regards,
Everett Barnes
http://www.thesamba.com

Joe Averager

I think I read that same description for an Auburn that my Father-in-law flipped out over. It was too cheap to be real. Pictures of the car were from a museum somewhere in middle America.

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