Beware of Roadster listed for sale on Autotrader.ca

wayner said:

There is a Very Orange Roadster listed for sale on Autotrader.ca 2010 Tesla Roadster Convertible for $52,200 in TORONTO | autoTRADER.ca


The listing looks very suspicious as it is priced very low and it is the same car, #569, that sold on eBay last week to forum user moezilla by orangeroadsterdc - see this thread for more info: Does anybody recognize this Roadster?. The licence plates have also been photoshopped.

Caveat emptor.

Note that I have contacted Auto Trader about my suspicions.

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It's no longer available.

Thanks for noticing that and being pro-active about getting it removed. It looks like the pictures were copied from a recent eBay listing as mentioned in this thread:
Does anybody recognize this Roadster?
Very Orange Roadster for Sale on Ebay - low Reserve already met

Here is a screen grab of the "fake" (scam?) advert that has since been removed:

Pardon the ignorance, but if this is a scam, how does it work? I've bought cars from Auto Trader before. I contact the seller and go and look at the car. If this car doesn't exist, wouldn't that be obvious when you go to see it? Who would buy something like this sight unseen?

There are always a few people whose judgement is overcome by the idea for getting a car they want at a price well below market. The fake seller strings them along with bogus stories as to why the car isn't available for inspection, how they have another buyer ready to pay them right away and if they want the car they have to give them a deposit immediately to "hold it" and then they disappear with the deposit.

ecarfan said:

There are always a few people whose judgement is overcome by the idea for getting a car they want at a price well below market. The fake seller strings them along with bogus stories as to why the car isn't available for inspection, how they have another buyer ready to pay them right away and if they want the car they have to give them a deposit immediately to "hold it" and then they disappear with the deposit.

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And the story would be one of the following two:
1. Just left the country to work abroad
2. Just got a divorce and need to get rid of the car

Maybe people are more trusting than I... I would NEVER buy anything from an individual sight unseen.

ecarfan said:

There are always a few people whose judgement is overcome by the idea for getting a car they want at a price well below market. The fake seller strings them along with bogus stories as to why the car isn't available for inspection, how they have another buyer ready to pay them right away and if they want the car they have to give them a deposit immediately to "hold it" and then they disappear with the deposit.

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" I am currently out of the country, but can have the car shipped to you for inspection and test drive. If you decide you don't want it, I will pay for return shipping. All I need for you is to wire me the $xxx to pay for the shipping charges to get you the car for your test drive and inspection...." Stuff like that.

Makes you feel like they are going to trust you with their car, so you feel like they are doing you a favor and you must be able to trust them. Similar scams happen with deposits for apartment rentals. They seem to scrape descriptions and photos from eBay and Craigslist then post fake versions on other sites.

NeedWatts said:

Maybe people are more trusting than I... I would NEVER buy anything from an individual sight unseen.

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Me too. I find it hard to imagine that someone could get taken by this... but I guess if this scam is going on, then there must be those out there who are more gullible than I.

mknox said:

Me too. I find it hard to imagine that someone could get taken by this... but I guess if this scam is going on, then there must be those out there who are more gullible than I.

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If only 0.5% of the people are trusting those scammers, then it's worth it for the scammers to stay in business. I think most of the victims are people who are new to the country...

I online shop from known retailers. Not individuals.

wayner said:

I buy stuff sight unseen all the time - it is called online shopping. But I wouldn't buy a car that way.

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Lots of Tesla customers did from teslamotors.com

brianman said:

Lots of Tesla customers did from teslamotors.com

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LOL. Good point! I guess I'm more gullible than I thought. I even ordered about a year before production! :biggrin:

iKhalid said:

If only 0.5% of the people are trusting those scammers, then it's worth it for the scammers to stay in business. I think most of the victims are people who are new to the country...

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I don't think it matters where you are from or how long you've been here. People fall for scams all the time.

dsm363 said:

I don't think it matters where you are from or how long you've been here. People fall for scams all the time.

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Of course, but with higher probability for someone new. When I listed my previous car 2 years ago as a lease takeover, I got many calls from people who were new to the country who thought that the monthly payment is actually the price of the car, while I stated clearly on Kijiji that it was a lease takeover. Unfortunately, someone like that might also fall in these traps easily.

A new method came up yesterday - a very cheap low mileage roadster showed up on cars.com, autotrader, by someone hacking a dealer's web site
so it was also on the dealer's private web site on their domain
a car sold earlier on ebay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tesla-Roadster-Immaculate-/221787525144
showed up on Used Cars Santa Rosa Used Motorcycles For Sale Napa San Francisco Miller's Motors