Buying a used car through Amazon....

[John_B]

Morning all

I'm interested in buying a vehicle (non-Z), however the buyer tells me that he is out of the country and has a contract with Amazon to sell the car

Has anyone ever heard of this arrangement before? I feel like I am pretty savvy at identifying scams, but I've not heard of this before - either as a scam or legit way of selling a car remotely.

I won't be paying a penny without seeing and test driving the car (and seeing the V5), however the next step the seller wants is for me to provide a my address which he says he will pass on to Amazon who will then get in touch.

I'm not especially concerned with providing my address, although I am fairly sure the next step will be an invoice from "Amazon" and that there won't be any way to see the car in advance, presumably there will be a "no quibble guarantee that I can return the vehicle for a full refund if I am not satisfied"

In the mean-time I've asked the seller for the postcode where the photos were taken, which I think is a good way of proving it is his vehicle and he's not just scraped a bunch of pics from AutoTrader. No response yet....

 

[Z Victor 1]

For me, if it's not at a dealership where I can go and deal directly or I'm seeing the car and owner at their home I'm not interested. It's good to be careful, a lot of scammers out there.

 

[John_B]

I contacted Amazon who have said they offer no such service.

Scam!

Be vigilant out there folks!

 

[Z Victor 1]

Must say, it sounded like a scam to me.

 

[John_B]

Must say, it sounded like a scam to me.

Oh yeah, me too. But on the 0.001% chance it was legit, I was prepared to look into it

 

[bombur]

I'd string him or her along

 

[IanA]

Yes, Amazon don't do that.

I have bought cars unseen on eBay but have always checked out the sellers and spoken to them as part of the buying prep.

 

[Jam03]

I’m curious, where did you see the car advertised in the first place? Although I do use Amazon a lot, there’s a lot of low level scammery on there already, but because it’s low value stuff you often are happy to risk it.

 

[John_B]

I’m curious, where did you see the car advertised in the first place?

It was on Facebook marketplace.

The first warning was it was a very good price, although on first contact this was somewhat validated with his story - that he'd had to leave the country and thought he'd have been able to have taken it with him, but turns out he couldn't and now just wanted a quick and easy sale - ok, fair enough.

However the second warning was in that same message - it stank of being written by AI. All I asked was if I could view it and he wrote me war and peace about it, including things like "Here's some info that I pulled from the user's manual, it has a 2.5 L turbo diesel engine and a manual gearbox" - like wow, what useful information from the manual, and not at all what I asked... haha

I have bought cars unseen on eBay but have always checked out the sellers and spoken to them as part of the buying prep.

If I believed I would have actually received the vehicle - whatever condition it was in, I might have been willing to take a punt on buying it unseen, it wasn't a lot of money. However with the AI-like messages, this Amazon nonsense and him not telling me where the photos were taken, I was quite sure I'd pay and then never see or hear from them again

 

[colb]

Scam no doubt, never ever buy a car without actually seeing it and test driving it, got burned on ebay when I bought a Range Rover without seeing it in the flesh and test driving it.

 

[Z Victor 1]

Fbook marketplace is absolutely full of scammers, but it's usually easy to spot them. First the price is too good to be true, then you're likely to see the same car advertised by 'different' people all over the country and also there aren't usually any 'Seller details'. Even some that at first glance look ok are clearly dodgy when a look at the Seller details reveals they supposedly have about 20 vehicles of all types for sale even though they present themselves as private individuals.

 

[Althulas]

My wife was worried today as we went and viewed a Mini Countryman from a company but viewed it at a sellers home. Wifey is admittedly crap at googling and could not find anything on the seller but I found lots of info including checking out the company tax returns etc so was legit, nice fella to and car was lovingly prepped and we were able to agree a price.

 

[as400]