Pls read: Mate ripped off selling his car...

[Rado16v 0]

Guys,

 

this is both a warning and after some advice. Unfortunatly this is what happened to my mate who's very smart but not too clued with cars. I wish he consulted me but all it takes is a small error in judgement, we've all been there. The story, its long but pls read...

 

He sold his VW Passat 1.9TD PDi115 on Wednesday only to realise he had been ripped off.

 

An eastern european guy, Romanian he said (I'm not being racist but I think a description may help) came to look at the car last week and was very interested. He agreed to buy the car for £7600 and took my mates bank details to transfer the money across. My mate told me how he never asked about the history of the car which began to ring bells in my head. I told him to be careful.

 

So my mate checks his account online daily to see if the money has come across and doesn't for a few days. The guy also calls up my mate every day too to ask if its gone across and blames it on the bank. It takes about a week and my mate says he's got till tomorrow else he's selling the car to someone else (he didn't even leave a deposit which annoyed me and I gave my mate a bollocking)

 

The money then appears when he checks it online the following day, Wednesday just gone. On the statement it said £7600 CR and the date. No mention of the other guys account or anything. But my mate's never done a bank transfer with another bank and took this to be the norm. Guy comes that day picks up the car and everything seems ok.

 

Saturday morning my mate gets a letter in the post from his bank saying a CHEQUEfor £7600 had bounced and they enclosed the cheque too. WTF!! He checked the account online and sure enough it had '£7600 unpaid cheque' debited from his balance. Not anywhere in the statement did it say this was a cheque when it was credited, all it said was credit of £7600. As far as my mate was concerned it was a bank transfer, he would never have taken a personal cheque. The name on the cheque was different to the name the guy had given him, can't say if it was stolen or it was a BS accout.

 

He called up his bank and they say that the figure appears on the statement even though the cheque doesn't clear but the money isn't physically there. This is where my mate f*** up big time, he should have confirmed with the bank first rather than taking what he saw on the screen for granted. The bank don't seem interested but they should since he has finance with them.

 

The guys mobile is switched off and we went to the address yesterday in Kilburn NW London and there was noone there by that description. Suprise suprise. Its been reported to the police but I don't think his insurance company will pay up.

 

So there you have it, £7600 out of pocket and he sold the car as he was going back to uni.

 

Clearly this is my mates cock up (and he does know that), he's very niave (My mate even gave him £40 cash cos he never had a chance to MOT it!) but seems there is always some c*** to take advantage of your good nature. NEVER give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

 

So question is what next, surely there is some sort of action he can take against the bank? I've told him to speak to his bank manager and possibly contact the Citizens Advice bureau.

 

Thanks for reading and any help/comments appreciated.

 

Amit

 

 

 

edit: swearing....vr6storm

[Majik 0]

sorry to hear about that geezer, what the details of the car? im sure you'll find him minicabbing around somewhere.

Another point......only use account transfers with businesses, if he could transfer money to another account, he could also bring the cashi dont see the logic!

Anyway i'll keep my eyes peeled cos im in the london area.

Was this the same guy with the storm?

[Rado16v 0]

Hey,

 

No, this wasn't the Storm. This was another mate with a Passat. The colour is Silver and its Sport spec. The reg is something like W*** URD

 

Thanks

[Henny 0]

I've heard about things like this before, and it's always a total arse when it happens... :( I think that the insurance people will just put their hands up and walk away not wanting to know about it because it's classified as "theft by deception" not just straight theft, and so you're not covered by them for it...

 

The guy I bought my first C off was REALLY overly careful... he made me get the bank fax a copy of the bankers draft over to him when they issued it along with a sheet of headed paper so that he could compare the fax to the one I was paying him with... Apparently the other scam is that they use a fake bankers draft, or a photo-shopped copy of one, at which point it becomes "theft by deception" and you are left screwed... :shock: He'd been done that way with a £7K jetski a few weeks earlier and no longer trusted anybody... :shock:

 

I think that the moral of the story is that if you are selling a car, insist on a bank transfer in person while you are BOTH in the branch doing the transfer and can check it's all gone through OK, or a bankers draft and letting them know you will release the car to them once it's cleared...

 

It's sad that the world is like this and that some people will rip others off in sneaky ways like this... :(

 

Comisserations to your mate, and I hope the police find the toe-rag and he gets his car back...

[Guest]

Below is copy of my reply to Amit's same post which I saw first on the corrado yahoo group and include here for readers of this forum having been prompted by VR6Storm who knows my occupation , thanks Roddy !

 

"Amit , firstly you are very right in that your friend has been naive (some , not me , might say incredibly so). Apologies now for length of what follows .

 

As a bank manager , well someone has to be (flame suit and the rest on !) albeit one who looks after only a limitd number of larger business clients , reading the

lines here rather than between them, what the con merchant has done is nothing more than the old one of playing the banking system 'time delay' in cq clearance .And no , I dont want to get into any debate on that one .

 

The main problem is that your friend at no stage seems to have been in 'control' of the process. I would never , never , ever advocate giving out your banking

details in such circumstances for a number of reasons but in this case I guess the 'Romanian' has paid in (accent on the paid in rather than bank transfer) his

dodgy cq with a credit made out with your friends banking details at a 'remote' bank , either the Romanians or any bank , or maybe even your friends

branch. Whatever , what the Romanian has not done is electronically transfer cleared funds , emphasise cleared , or paid in cash on a giro credit . Thus when

the credit , wherever it was paid in , has gone to your friends account on day one if paid in at your friends branch or day three if paid in elsewhere the Romanians cq has taken 3 days , or maybe 4, to get to his bank and be returned unpaid taking another day. What your friend has not done , apart from presumably not being aware of the general advice all over the place on what to do when selling a car , has ascertained how the funds have come into his account and proceeded appropriately. I am , I emphasise , in no way lecturing here or being judgemental but simply 'thinking aloud' technically. I think I am right in saying all the sources of advice on car selling will say dont let the car go unless / until you are

sure you have cleared funds after suitable time has elapsed and / or your bank have unequivocally confirmed any cq/draft is paid. There are so many dodgy bank / building society 'drafts' around these days (forged , stolen etc) I'd be wary of regarding such 'paper' as ok without treating as a normal cq. A

proper electronic transfer bank to bank such as solicitors or commercial customers use (in NatWest we call them CHAPS) , although ideal , are relatively uncommon for personal customers to use with cost of , err I think , £30/£25 per transaction .

 

Iam afraid I cant see any 'blame' here on the bank's part whatsoever and your friend has simply not taken any duty of care in clarifying how the money came into

his account . I would not , as guess is your belief as well , hold out any hopes for his chances of recovering car or cash unless the police can 'perform' for once but how likely is that - if car or individual are even in the country ? Sorry.

 

Doubt any of the above helps but the story is a salutary lesson to us all maybe . I confess I was wondering , when attempting to sell my 16v recently, no takers after timewaster gave backword, just what I would do when any firm sale arrived in terms of making sure I had been paid but was going to deal with it as and when in light of what any purchaser suggested but I would probably have asked for draft / cq but then asked my bank to send 'direct' , what we call a direct presentation at modest cost , with my bank actually 'enquiring for fate' to the receiving bank and

confirming the same to me before I let the car go .

 

Hope your friend somehow gets a result but ...... "

 

BTW anyone after , or know of anyone who is after , a mint 66k 1992 2.0 16v then whilst my ads have run their course my car is still 'unofficially' for sale without my proactively pushing it as , like I said when advertising it is no hardship to keep , nothing at all wrong with it (qite the contrary) but desire for VR the only reason for possible sale.

[Rado16v 0]

Result guys.

 

The police called my mate today and the cars turned up at a dealer!!

 

The Romanian sold it to this dealer for £4000 and obviously wouldn't have come up with anything on any checks as the car was reported a few days after.

 

A major sigh of relief when I heard I can tell you. I'll let you know when I hear more.

 

Thansk for the interest again.

[julesz 0]

Surely that means the dealer loses out there??

[Rado16v 0]

Since when did we start giving a sh!t about a stealer

 

Seriously, the stealer is at loss of £4000. LEts hope he can recover it some how. My mate would not have standed a chance at all.

[julesz 0]

Thats exactly what i meant mate.. Was just enquiring whether the stealer was playing ball...