used car scam

Tip leads to man suspected in Craigslist car scams:

Police in Texas have arrested 24-year-old Fadel Eric Assane. He is suspected in having scammed at least 30 people out of their cars that they were selling on craigslist. Assane would convince his victims that money transfers from banks had taken place and he would drive off with their cars and titles.

Fraudulent Internet ad leads police in a different direction:

A man in West Virginia was duped by an ad on the Anchorage craigslist for a Honda motorcycle. He sent, I’m assuming wired, $2400 to the ’seller’ who called himself ‘Jack Stevens’. Of course the man never received the motorcycle.

Remember kids, local only.

Investigators warn of Craigslist car scam:

Speaking of the craigslist used car scam Houston Police are warning people not to fall for it after 4 people in the Houston area already have.

They say the suspects contact the victim via e-mail, posing as a representative of the company eBay.inc and provide instructions to the victims as to how to make payment arrangements for the vehicle purchased.

Of course those instructions are to wire the money using MoneyGram and then the scammers make off with the cash.

As far as I know MoneyGram is a legit service but much like craigslist it seems to be a useful tool for scam artists.

Remember kids, never wire the money.

Sonoman loses $4K in online scam:

A 63-year-old woman from Sonoma, California was lost $4000 when she ‘bought’ a used car on craigslist.

The ’seller’ claimed to be David Bruno and stated that he was selling the car because he was shipping out to Iraq. He then requested the woman to wire the money to him for the car. He provided all sorts of proof of ownership that turned out to be fake.

The VIN for the vehicle traced back to a used car lot outside of Philadelphia. The lot manager said he had received several phone calls about that car. It seems that the car may have been ’sold’ numerous times on craigslist.

The moneygram was cashed in North Las Vegas, Nevada.

I wonder if that was the money’s last stop or was it headed overseas?

Internet Scam Uses Fallen Soldier’s Name:

Some unscrupulous scammer is posting an ad on craigslist purporting to sell a car that belonged to fallen soldier from Michigan, Byron Fouty.

The ad is for a BMW M6 going for $2,800. According to the article the Bluebook value is $80K. The ad claims to be from Byron Fouty’s father and it asks to wire the money to a fake escrow company.

Byron Fouty’s stepfather says that Byron never even owned a car.

I hope karma finds the assclown that posted this ad and punches him right in the face.