To sell or not to sell?

speed12 said:
Thanks for all of th replies everyone,

Glad I am not the only one who thinks it is a little dodgy. I will proceed with caution and simply state that I will accept cash but will only release the car keys and documentation when the money has been successfully paid into my account whilst in my presence. The deposit idea is a good one, I guess if he really was legitimate he would pay the deposit, though to be honest if I were the buyer I would not feel comfortable sending £500 without some sort of written receipt!

The other thing that makes me a little suspicious is that his personal email address supplied in the first email does not exist (according to my Gmail account).

Right will proceed, however if he is unable to finalise the transaction before mid next week I will have to withdraw the vehicle and put it back on in September after the road trip.

Many thanks
Well ladies and Gents,

This looks to me like a scam..

I took the actions recommended. He has since replied saying he can only pay fully on PayPal and was even kind enough to send me the PayPayl.com address if I wanted to set up an account (which is suspiscious anyway considering I said in my email that I wanted a 5% deposit sent via Paypal! hence I already have an account).

Came across this website: http://scam.com/showthread.php?t=118871

Sounds similar to my case, though I think mine is a little more sophisticated... his britishnavy.com domain is real, but currently the domain is for sale, also the address supplied at the bottom of his email is true (there is indeed a Naval base with the same address).

Apparently with large payments on Paypal it can take a while to fully process the amount? and/ or the buyer has some sort of fraudulent cover so he/she could simply play the fraud card and get their money back whilst my car is being shipped off somewhere.

All I can say is that I am glad I never gave my address.

Of course I could still be wrong and he may be genuine but even their English is not that great...

Wonder whether to play him along a little more...
 
It does sound like a scam but I would just email back stating your conditions of sale for him are the same as you have informed the other interested buyers. Namely that a 5% deposit by Paypal with the car, and keys and documentation being released on confirmation by your bank (not Paypal) that the remaining balance has been cleared. Say you have other interested buyers and the first to pay the deposit secures the right to proceed.
 
in caps - DON'T SELL A CAR USING PAYPAL (for deposit or full settlement).

Matey can pick the car up and then reclaim the amount from Paypal - you have no evidence of having delivered the 'goods' so are stuffed.

Same goes for someone collecting a laptop from your home address after they have paid you by Paypal. You'll soon find the money has been reclaimed back from Paypal due to non-delivery and you are left with no money and no laptop.

As for the britishnavy.com address - he may as well be sending from @iamascammer.com

Keep the car - have fun and hopefully house prices will start to fall enough to allow you to have both.
 
Will email him soon and make out that the authorities are on to him (even though he is probably based in some overseas location).

Part of me would love to play along and get the police or trading standards involved to grab his "moving agent" though I know nothing can or will be done.
 
Absolute scam no question. British Navy would use a .mod.uk domain suffix anyway so the use of the britishnavy.com email is a deliberate confidence trick.
 
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