Auction scams - is this a common experience, or did I do something that made me seem like a sucker?

[AZ2024]

I recently had a really odd experience on quite a well known auto-auction site (Not Facebook marketplace or Gumtree\Craig's List), I posted an early 2000s Fiat for a relatively low price. Nothing rare of fancy, and with a string of advisories on the MOT going back several years so not in mint condition either.

I was basically hoping to sell it to someone who wanted a disposable runaround.

Almost immediately had several people offering to take the car off of my hands for cash if I took it off of the auction and sold it as a private sale. They offered a relatively realistic amount of money. I didn't even bother to respond to them as this is pretty much the first scam that everyone is warned off.

I then had several people place unusually high bids in competition with each other from accounts that only had a single user rating for a low value item, and which had only been open for a couple of months. All of them had one of those user names that's a random word followed by a random number.

It looked like they were trying to push the price up so that one of them could pull out and the other could pressure me into taking a lower offer.

Another person said that they wanted to bid but "were out of the country".

Someone else bid at the last minute, with an older account and a good reputation on the auction site. I suspected that this was going to be a scam too as they offered quite a bit more than the car had been valued at, and they haivered about payment methods and setting a date for the collection, but they turned out to be genuine and paid cash.

Even after the auction had closed someone else messaged me offering me even more money in cash if I cancelled the auction and sold it to them as a private sale. Considerably more than the car was worth.

Is this a common experience on auction sites, lots of scammers flocking in on low value cars making shell bids or offering off auction sales, or did I do something that made me seem like a sucker?

Or were these likely all real people who just wanted a cheap car, right now, and I'm just being paranoid?

 

[jackwhoo]

Out of the country....yep scam

 

[The Panda Nut]

He might have been on the Isle of Wight or in Wales....

In any of these auctions, I only go through the system, including all correspondence. When buying I use pay pal linked to a credit card. Sofar all dodgy items have been refunded immediately. Ive had 5 items that were scams. One immediate refund (De Walt batteries), two covid scams intercepted and refunded before the order was processed, 1 fake Italian company who faked dispatch of Panda key fobs refunded after investigation, 1 cheap power tool order cancelled by eBay before payment was made. EBay have proved sound, but go around their system even once, at your peril. You may have got more via the best bidder, but being happy with the deal is sometimes more important.

I have bought from Poland and Italy without problems too. Its a big shame we.lost the Polish parts suppliers!

 

[porta]

Also beware wehn buying, lots of duplicate adverts for the same item, often you pay and nothing appears or, for higher value goods like vehicles, seller asks for deposit and disappears

 

[AnthonyH]

I recently had a really odd experience on quite a well known auto-auction site (Not Facebook marketplace or Gumtree\Craig's List), I posted an early 2000s Fiat for a relatively low price. Nothing rare of fancy, and with a string of advisories on the MOT going back several years so not in mint condition either.

I was basically hoping to sell it to someone who wanted a disposable runaround.

Almost immediately had several people offering to take the car off of my hands for cash if I took it off of the auction and sold it as a private sale. They offered a relatively realistic amount of money. I didn't even bother to respond to them as this is pretty much the first scam that everyone is warned off.

I then had several people place unusually high bids in competition with each other from accounts that only had a single user rating for a low value item, and which had only been open for a couple of months. All of them had one of those user names that's a random word followed by a random number.

It looked like they were trying to push the price up so that one of them could pull out and the other could pressure me into taking a lower offer.

Another person said that they wanted to bid but "were out of the country".

Someone else bid at the last minute, with an older account and a good reputation on the auction site. I suspected that this was going to be a scam too as they offered quite a bit more than the car had been valued at, and they haivered about payment methods and setting a date for the collection, but they turned out to be genuine and paid cash.

Even after the auction had closed someone else messaged me offering me even more money in cash if I cancelled the auction and sold it to them as a private sale. Considerably more than the car was worth.

Is this a common experience on auction sites, lots of scammers flocking in on low value cars making shell bids or offering off auction sales, or did I do something that made me seem like a sucker?

Or were these likely all real people who just wanted a cheap car, right now, and I'm just being paranoid?

You're description reads true. Lots of scammers out there. You have to sift through them. A lot of sellers are scammers too, not just buyers.

Its the job of these people, so they move on quickly, and get through lots of messages in a day in some cases.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

If someone wants to turn up l, pay cash and take the car, that’s fair, but I’d not take the auction down until it was off my drive.

Apparently another scam that’s been going on a lot is buying a car swapping bits they want off it then demanding a refund shortly after, when they have already taken out the gearbox or engine and replaced it with a broken gearbox.

 

[Intergalactic Ow Ow]

You just don't know with stuff like this now. One of the strangest was when we were looking for a motorhome around summer last year. I saw one locally on that same auction site. Zero feedback seller (red flag) but they were a new member, had several vans for sale with the same background AND were registered on companies house and had a website too. I rang to see if I could have a test drive, they agreed and gave me the same address as what was on companies house. Now, since everything was so cheap, I still felt something was... "off" with this so I Google street viewed the address which was an industrial unit which appeared to be empty. Google, I thought, could be out of date if this was a start up business and so, I rang the business in the unit next door.

The guy said he had recently had a few people ringing and even turning up looking for this motorhome seller - nobody is there. The place doesn't exist. I reported it to the auction site and a few days later the page had gone along with their website. They remained on companies house until September this year and then dissolved.

So, whilst this isn't quite the same experience the OP had, it still raises the question of "what did these people have to gain?"

It's actually quite unnerving...

 

[AZ2024]

It's weird, I'd have expected this more with a higher value vehicle, not an aging fiat.

 

[AnthonyH]

It's weird, I'd have expected this more with a higher value vehicle, not an aging fiat.

A few hundred pounds is a days work to a lot of people, and a lot of money for some.