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Stop Car matching Scams

You’ve decided to sell your car and have posted all the details on any number of Irish car-selling websites. Within 48 hours, you have received a call from a UK-based ‘vehicle-matching’ company.

They say their job is to match buyers with sellers and tell you they have a buyer in your area who wants your car and that the price is right for them.

All you have to do is pay an administration fee of €100-€120 to sign up for this service, plus you may be told you’ll get a refund if they cannot secure the buyer. You are delighted and hand over your credit-card details. And what happens next?

Nothing. No buyer materializes. So you ask for a refund. That’s not forthcoming either. You have become the latest victim of a vehicle-matching scam.

However, such scams may soon be a thing of the past. Today in the UK, raids are taking place in the offices of these ‘vehicle-matching’ companies in an effort to stop traders engaged in such practices. Today’s action involves the police, local authority Trading Standard Services and consumer bodies, and it has been co-ordinated by the UK’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

The OFT is also warning employees of rogue car-matching firms that they will be individually liable for prosecution for “knowingly and dishonestly misleading consumers”.

Mike Haley, Director of Consumer Protection at the Office of Fair Trading, says: “Time is up for rogue traders who attempt to cheat sellers with false promises of a guaranteed buyer for their cars. We are working with the industry and enforcement partners across the UK to crack down on scammers who are preying on consumers during the economic downturn.”

In the UK, 1,600 complaints were received in 2008 but they reckon the true number of those who have lost money is greater. It is also a problem here. Last year, 152 consumers complained to the Irish European Consumer Center (ECC); a similar number of complaints was received in 2007 and 169 in 2006.

Due to the scale of the problem, in 2007 the ECC compiled a report on the issue and submitted it to the National Consumer Agency and, the next year, they filed a follow-up report. No action was taken. ECC’s Ann Neville says: “ECC Ireland continues to be concerned about the number of Irish consumers who are suffering financially as a result of the activities of vehicle-matching companies.”

EU consumer law prohibits unfair commercial practices, especially misleading actions, omissions and aggressive practices and some action has already been taken by UK enforcement agencies. Last September, two men, trading as Pro seller, who had ripped off people trying to sell their cars, were sent to jail in the UK.

They admitted to 150 offenses including making statements that they knew to be false. The judge branded the scam an “organised fraud on a wide scale” which involved “cold-blooded personal cheating” and “lying to the public purely for profit”.

In November, the Office of Fair Trading revoked the consumer credit licence of a London company trading as Vehicle Seller Limited, because despite several warnings they continued to cold-call consumers selling cars and part them from their cash with false promises. They gave customers the misleading impression that a number of buyers had expressed an interest in their particular car. In fact, the company would subsequently just re-advertise the vehicle on their own website.

Let’s hope today’s actions will bring similar results and good news for Irish and UK consumers alike.

Meanwhile, if you do have a car for sale, then do keep on the look-out for such scams:

* Stop, think and be skeptical if you are cold-called and are asked for money in advance.
* Don’t give your credit or debit card details to people you don’t know.
* Stop, think and be skeptical if promises are made that give the impression that there are immediate buyers for your car; that finance has already been arranged for potential buyers; that buyers are willing to pay your asking price or more; that there are buyers ready to view your car immediately or that you will be offered a refund if the car does not sell. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
* Don’t be pressured into anything.
* If in doubt about a particular telephone call, hang up.