Buyer beware : suspicious Roadster listing on eBay right now

Agreed, that new eBay and Autos Bay listing for 1333 can't be legitimate because it uses photos of a different car, 1206. And of course the price is about $15K below the typical market value of a 2011 Sport.

Fuel type: Gasoline

They are kicking in a new oil filter, though. Might be a good deal.

Edit: The BMW 7-series photo comes from a car listed as sold for twice as much in New Orleans several months ago. It's amazing how these scam sites can appear and manage to trap people.

Though strangely that car has different wheels and no rear Sport badge compared to the car shown in the "for Sale in Santa Monica" ad you linked to in your OP.

The supposed general manager's picture was lifted from a UK hotel site.


http://autos-bay.com/images/manager.png

http://www.hotel-magazine.co.uk/wp-...anager-for-Rooms-Lancaster-London-low-res.jpg

Just some data points about this supposed "Autos-Bay" business:

• The domain autos-bay.com was created on May 1st, 2015.
• The domain registrant has a Yandex email address. Yandex is a Russian search engine company.
• The registrant's name is "Sandra McCray" which happens to be a women's clothing brand name.
• The registrant's address is in Clymer, NY.
• Autos-Bay says it's located in Plant City, FL.
• The photo of the General Manager, "Frank Chapman," is also the photo of one Florian Broemel who lives in the UK
• The photo of the Sales lady, "Jean Greene", is also the photo of Kate Watkins who works at Missouri Institute of Mental Health
• The photo of the Support person, "Alan Ferguson," is also the photo of one Jake Ernd, an Iowa high school varsity tennis player.
• The photo of the warehouse with the cars in it appears in forums and other websites all over the place.

I think you see where this is going....

Nice work @tinm! "Autos-Bay" website looks like a scam.

TEG said:

Some general advice:

Avoiding online car buying scams - National Consumers League

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Good advice. Also another tip (which I nearly learned the hard way): If you're selling a car on eBay etc., be sure to establish a minimum feedback requirement for bidders. I tried to sell a used car recently on eBay and forgot to do this, and with a short time left in the auction a brand new high bidder jumped in: new account with garbage screen name, zero feedback. Fortunately, I got a solid local offer for the car and was able to cancel the auction. (eBay allows you to list cars in local newspapers etc. simultaneously with online auctions, and doesn't penalize you for canceling if they sell offline.)

TEG said:

it looks like all of the bids were canceled and the listing was just eneded on eBay...

(Weird that eBay says it ended on June 8th which is 5 days away)

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Does eBay update the end date for auctions that are cancelled?

I think this was "Bill from Buffalo's car"...he was up here a month ago at a GHEVA meeting and mentioned that he was going to trade his Roadster in on a Caddy ELR...

TEG said:

This is perhaps the real #1333:

Used 2011 Tesla Roadster 2.5 for sale in the Buffalo, NY area that is available! Buffalo Buick, GMC, Cadillac Dealer in Orchard Park | Basil New Used Cars

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I just had someone from the UK respond to my "WTB Front set of Black Forged Wheels for my 2.5" giving me his name and wanting me to send money via Moneygram. Of course the price was right including shipping! I looked him up on FB and he looked to young (sorry) to have a Roadster and there was no mention of any EV involvement or any pic. I asked him to send me a pic of the wheels and never heard back.....