Cars for Sale Scams
Is anybody else tired of the facts that Qatarliving support or is unable to identify scams on the car sales pages?
I have been looking for a car for 3 months using Qatarliving and I would recommend it to anyone. In fact I have warned other expats from using it.
I have now had 3 scam emails from people, 2 from the same guy with exactly the same text. The third with a slight variation.
The phone number on these adverts does not work, this is the first clue. Next the emails are non domain type so there is no identifier or ability to check a user. The last clue is that the pictures are always only of the outside of the vehicle and usually only one is submitted.
You email and the same sob story appears as quoted below.
They claim is to have moved to the UK, are they trying to imply that they are well educated? The next line tells you that they can show you the car in Dubai in the garage, now that is an expensive flight to make without a guaranteed sale!
Text you get in emails is this;
"Hello,
I'm writing you regarding the car is like new,in perfect condition ,no scratches,no damage,never involved in any accidents, the engine works perfectly, it has the service book and all papers.Is not leasing. The car is qatar specs.I have attach car photos.Price is 27000 QR.
I must tell you,i just moved with my family in London,United Kingdom and the car is in Qatar in my home garage(i have also a house for sale ).
I can not drive the car here in UK because the steering wheel on the left side.So I bought another car with the wheel on the right side and i didn`t pay all the amount That`s why i decide to sell this car so cheap. I need money to pay my other car before i`ll start to pay extra taxes.
I have nobody in Qatar that could show you the car. I need to come personal to meet you and present the car.So please let me know if you are really interested to buy the car.Please don't spend my time with endless disscutions,or pure curiosity
Respectfully...
Riyas"
The email id used was [email protected] and [email protected].
Qatarliving please block access to these email accounts.
I have had this email for a Prado and a Volvo in the last 2 days.
I am sorry Qatarliving but your site and the adverts are untrustworthy and are inhabited by crooks that your moderators seem unable to find.
A simple email asking for a copy of a residence permit and a contact number for the employer will stop this game.
Do something about it please.
Anyone else had the same problems? Comments and complaints to Qatarliving.
i'm tired of this, too. i chose to ignore them but i still hate it
Thats sad! Im actually trying to sell my car and because i am out of DOha now living in Cyprus people find it hard to trust me
.
Hello John.
May I know the website where to find good car deals?
Thanks
Onajite Emmanuel
I got a good deal once and at the moment, I'm in search for an SUV....I fell for this guy, I mean he said not to call him only email but he never got back to me...the strangest thing though was that,whenever I find this advert, click on it and go somewhere else and then try to come back to this same advert, I never find it again no matter how hard I try. May the good Lord have mercy on such scamers
Hi sorry for the late reply but been using other sites etc. I am sorry but I found a clean car with service history and no kids junk or sticky fingers. I used another site that does check the ads....Qatarliving is full of junk mostly. Your car sounds good so I will tell a friend who is looking for a similar vehicle. Thanks.
Land Rover LR2 SE 2008
Black
Semi-full option
3.2l engine, 235 Hp
low mileage
Land rover service center maintained
No major accident, only scratches and light dents (normal to middle east cars)
Last maintenance, more than a year due to seldom use of the vehicle
Road permit until April 18, 2012
John R McCallum, what type of car you are looking at? i have a real landrover 2, 2008 model, black exterior/interior... with less than 26,000 km mileage... what is your budget by the way?
There is a scam wave coming from Mali and Nigeria in many places, you can find this on all websites that sells from Asia (China specifically) and forums and classifieds) in Middle east. They even post on ebay.
I have dealt with those scammers many times up to the point that they called me pegging to send the money and swearing to god that they will send me what i am looking for. i have not been scammed so far, but who knows there is always first time :)
These scams relies on basic things
1- Very attractive deal (good product for low price). greed, lucky feeling, and sometimes opportunity to make money out of it by reselling.
2- trustworthiness, as they provide suspicious offer by sending money before you get the item, they ask you to send it to another name and detail but send them a scan for the transfer for their assurance of commitment from your side.
Western union only requires tracking no. and they will cash you the money instantly, regardless to whom it was sent and to which country you sent. if you sent it to UK, they can cash it out in Mali or Nigeria.
qatarliving admin or support cannot monitor every single posting for validity or scam, same as it is for ebay. They can only act if it is reported. every post here has a report scam / fraud button that you can use to report the post as scam.
Got to agree with Lilcolnpirate :O)
The email comes after the contact. At this point I dropped the contact. It also makes me cringe to hear the sob stories...my wife is in the UK for an operation so I am selling the car quickly etc....The post of there should be a cellphone number check is a good one to begin with.
Not looking for a Ferrari etc..... just a clean car that is not full of kids junk or has had some chain smoking owner.
LP, you are back in full swing....
Qatarliving is a website which is free of cost for uploading classifieds. They do not screen advts and i do not expect them to.There is however a button to "flag as spam/scam" on every classified advt - you/users can help by clicking this button. I do that when i come across such scams - most of the time i see that the mods do remove such advts once this has been flagged.
The key is being "aware" - QL also has caution notice in yellow which states to make sure the seller is in Qatar and has a local number. Ofcourse you can put in a namesake qatar number. However if the price of a vehicle is too good to be true, most of the time, it probably is.
There is another website (QAR 100 for seller to put up his advt) - you have legitimate vehicles as they personally photograph the vehicle and upload specs on the website. All the best - there are great deals to be found out there - so do not give up hope.
what crap, in the email the scammers say that they HAD to by a right hand drive, well, in the UK you can drive left hand drive cars without any problems. Not like qatar where they get funny about which side the steering wheel is on.
lol LP !
"The car is qatar specs." What the hell are 'Qatar Specs'?
And: "(i have also a house for sale )". So, he must be a Qatari, or who else can own a house in Qatar?
The person who reacts to these adverts should be punished for stupidity!
I guess the best thing we can do is to ignore them and instead of relying to people you don't know much, try to go directly to a registered agency, by that way, you'll have a lesser chance of becoming a victim by these scams.
I got one too...
But then those nos. dont work and that is the first clue (as also acknowledged by OP) whats the point in taking it to email level and then come back crying!!!
well the scammers have started putting Qatar numbers in their ads.....
Hi John, I have had a similar experience; probably the only difference was that I already knew these were SCAMs. If anything looks too good to be true, it probably isn't true in the first place.
The most annoying thing is these posters have multiple IDs. I have reported several such ads as SCAM; but these turn up under a new ID soon enough.
The simplest thing for QL to do would be to have an SMS check of the mobile number for all posters intending to sell their goods/services so atleast the phone number is genuine.
Notwithstanding the SCAMs, I still think there are a lot of genuine sellers out there, so keep the faith..
Cheers
Searching for a car for three months!!!.... must be you are looking for a brand new Ferrai at the cost of a Tida and that is what has landed you with the scammers.
And before jumping the gun did you read the 'Quick Tip' highlighted under classifieds which reads:
Quick Tip: Make Sure the Seller is in Qatar by checking for a local phone number and don't ever buy anything listed in $.