This is a new trick…
Car thieves are always thinking of new ways to separate you from your vehicle, but you also have to watch out for car sales scams. These involve separating you from your money either without giving you a vehicle or maybe selling you a stolen car. Just when we thought we’d heard of it all, a man in San Diego, California was robbed of $14,000 he thought was going toward a 1967 Chevy Camaro.
Find out how a guy was scammed into buying a rental Dodge Hellcat here.
Whoever the scammer was had quite the scheme going to “sell” a car he didn’t own. The guy listed the ’67 Camaro and gave some sob story about how it belongs to his father who’s battling cancer and needed the money for chemotherapy. The scammer had the buyer meet him where the car, which didn’t have working brakes, was parked. The actual owner was in the garage and legitimately is battling cancer, so everything seemed just fine.
The “son” got the title from the seller, and the buyer checked it over, making sure everything looked legitimate as the seller stayed in the garage, ostensibly because of his health concerns. Seeing the title, the buyer handed over $14,000 in cash and was given the title as well as the car keys. That’s when the “son” said he had a whole stack of parts for the Camaro he was going to get out of storage nearby.
Suspecting nothing, the buyer called a wrecker to haul the car away. That’s when he started talking to the Camaro’s owner about the vehicle, racing, and life in general. When the wrecker arrived, however, the old man said he still needed to be paid. And that’s when the buyer realized he and the old man had been scammed, only he was out $14,000.
This enterprising scammer approached the Camaro’s owner about selling it. After agreeing on a price, the man said he was going to bring an appraiser by, who turned out to be the unsuspecting buyer. The scammer asked the Camaro owner to stay inside the garage so he could hammer out the details with the appraiser. It was all a ploy to keep both sides from realizing they were being played.
Of course, the big red flag with this deal was the unbelievably low price for the ’67 Camaro which ran and was in good condition, except for the brakes. But the scammer preyed on the would-be buyer thinking he found the deal of a lifetime, causing him to not ask many questions. With scammers getting ever more creative, we all have to stay on our toes.
Source: CBS 8
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