Watch out for the scam caravan ads

Thanks for the tip and being so vigilant

Unfortunately these days, you absolutely need to be super vigilant when looking at purchasing from these types of sites. A couple of months ago, my son was really keen on a Jayco van advertised that turned out to be a scam. The frightening part is to what lengths some a-holes will go to try to fleece innocent people of their money. This particular scammer even emailed (from what turned out to be a bodgy email address) photocopies of a driver licence and caravan registration certificate. Doctored and false documents but done very well !! He did not want a cash sale, but instead a bank cheque, but wanted to see a scanned copy of the bank cheque to prove that the buyer was genuine and to justify him driving 4 hours to supposedly where the van was stored so we could inspect it. I don't think so - not a snow flakes hope in hell was he getting that !!! He even went as far as giving false occupation and work details etc at the footer of his emails. A phone call to the said company revealed a response of "This has been going on for the last 12 months or so, but we haven't heard that name before" Luckily, we twigged on this before anything happened - no money changed hands etc. There are a number of other things that in hindsight were a red flag, but I would be typing for quite a while to list them all. The scam was reported to Police and the advertising site. So - be very, very careful. Things may not be as they seem !!

It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who will readily part with money as soon as they spot a "bargain" - without being cautious and doing a heap of cross-checking.

A Google search (and particularly an image search) usually brings up the scammers in quick-smart time, because they can't help themselves, and they'll post the same pics in multiple ads - that have always been stolen from genuine ads.

Recently, a bloke on another forum (recreational flying) started asking if anyone knew anything about a good used Rotax engine deal, or the seller - who was in Europe.

A quick search and some cross-checking soon found a scammer selling an engine that didn't exist - and we promptly found the photos from the ad - on an American blokes blog, where'd he was outlining his kit aircraft build.

Then this forum member let us know he'd just paid $5000 to this scammer - and then suddenly woke up that there just might be something not quite right with the deal because of the convoluted and untraceable payment method.

I was staggered that someone would be foolish enough to part with $5000 up front, without getting thorough verification, without getting someone he trusted to check the engine in person - and making a payment using convoluted, untraceable, and unrecoverable methods. Or - not even doing an initial internet search to flush out the scammer.

Even just searching the scam sellers name will usually flush them out as a scammer, because people will name them on forums and blogs, and they will be promptly exposed.

I got caught about 15 yrs ago with a Jap scammer selling non-existent Sony digital cameras - making initial contact via eBay.

This bloke was incredible with his thoroughness, his backup story - and he even rented an office in Tokyo to be able to give me verifiable phone and fax numbers, that both worked.

I wasn't aware that you could rent a serviced office in Japan on a short-term basis - and this was obviously what this cunning scammer did.

I should have been alerted, when he wanted to use an untraceable early digital currency - explaining that angle away glibly, that he wanted to avoid some of the excessive Japanese taxes, such as GST.

As always, I was too eager to secure a great deal on a new camera that was top-of-the-range at the time - and I lost $800 to this sewer rat.
It was a hard-earned lesson for the new digital age, and I have been dead-set on exposing scammers at every opportunity, ever since.

Cheers, Ron.

Always report these to the media; Quocka, eBay, Gumtree or whatever. Most will pull them down quickly.

Just makes it harder for the genuine sellers out there like myself, to sell their caravans. The interest I've mainly had is from people expecting to virtually giveaway your caravan because of all these other so called vans that are so much "newer" than yours for the same or cheaper price.