Thank you Randa, My Pontos is definitely not for sale and it was a shock to see my baby on a scam advert using one of the original advert photos, which indecently we still have as we downloaded at the time but we have never put it on the internet. I would hate to think anyone parted with their hard earned cash because they saw a photo of our Pontos. As far as I know there is only 3 or 4 Pontos in the Uk so everyone, if you see one advertised check it out very carefully, and of course any other Eriba adverts you see. Please everybody be vigilant and protect yourself, if it looks too good to be true it often is
.

I can semi understand why someone might bid on an Eriba that they had not seen or touched, but why transfer funds (even a deposit) before going to view or collect it? Taking criminals out of the equation, an Eriba, or any item that can suffer wear and tear, weather damage, accident damage etc. needs to be checked out, regardless of how good the photos and descriptions may be.

Do these con artists actually manage to pull off their little scams, because I cannot imagine why they would ever be successful.

In this same conversation on Eriba Folk Facebook someone reported his niece lost £3500 on a too good to be true purchase. Very brave of him to admit it. It's like the double glazing salesman and the numbers game. You only need to catch 1 person every month from thousands of baits.

Sadly some people don't have a suspicious nature. My middle daughter is autistic with learning difficulties. She sees everything as black and white and can't understand that someone may lie to her. She once lost £500 on an internet scam over a chihuahua puppy. She rang me in real distress as she was convinced that this puppy was held in a crate at an airport and she would be reported and possibly charged with animal cruelty. It would only be released to her if she sent more money. So obviously a scam to me but she couldn't see it. The b*stards prey on the naive and vulnerable. Also there are those who can't resist what appears to be a bargain, they rarely are.

scum of the earth

When we were buying Betty, a man called from Switzerland wanting to buy her then and there, without seeing her so I see how it could happen.

We sold our campervan (via pre loved) to a chap who "didn't do all that new fangled stuff". So he turned up with £11500 in cash (mainly 10s and 20s). That was fun!. We agreed to drive to town in the van, hand over the cash at the building society (who very quickly counted and verified it), and did the documentation at the post office.

I reported a listing yesterday, as I'm sure many other people did, and it was removed. The scammer had simply copied the photos of the 2018 430 FB from a currently running classified, and put a price of £9xxx on it. The proper advert has a price of £18xxx. The low price was the initial giveaway, but the lifting of the photos was just blatant.

I’ve got my Puck on eBay as a classified ad at present, got these within 30 minutes of my email address going live.
Not quite sure how the scam works but has got to involve my PayPal ID.

Thanks for the quick response, can you assure me it's in good condition ?? ,I need you to understand that I am willing and ready to purchase it right away, put it off the AD site, consider me as your favorite buyer, I'm seriously interested in buying this and due to the nature of my work,phone calls making and visiting of website are restricted but i squeezed out time to check this advert and send you an email regarding it.i would be glad to pay for it as soon as possible though i will not be available to come for an inspection due to my tight schedule. Kindly get back to me with the following questions below:

1) What is the condition?
2) Are you the Owner?
3) Pick up Location?
4) Your PayPal Email ID to effect the payment
5) How much is your buy it now price

I would be glad to make the payment immediately through PayPal so kindly get back to me with your PayPal ID. You need not to worry yourself about title transfer and shipment,i will instruct the shipping company to handle that therefore in order to complete the transaction do get back to me with your PayPal ID and total cost so that I can make the payment asap. I will be waiting for your reply!

Thanks and God bless

Then another from same email address.......

How much is the final price? All that is required for me to have your
money sent is just for you to get back to me with the email address
and name that you linked with your paypal account. And my pickup agent
will be available to process/pick up the tittle during pick-up and
after you must have received your money cash in hand. I can only feel
secured sending my funds via paypal due to there various security
measures at ensuring safe and secured transaction between
buyer/seller. However, if you feel otherwise, I totally understand

And just as I posted the above “Avlon John” wants to buy it!! Quick search and it looks like he is well known for scams

Zitat

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within 30 minutes of my email address going live

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I hope you didn't give out your email address

It's a scam.

On my eBay ad in the description field. It’s not one that is linked to anything, I have a few ‘throw away’ accounts set up that I use for such reasons.

I love "thank you and God bless" lol He will, of course, end up where it's red hot lol