THE community of the Nelson Mandela Bay are once again warned to take extra precautions and to be careful when selling or buying cars via social media platforms.
In a statement issued by the police, Captain Sandra Janse Van Rensburg said, “Scammers monitor social media platforms for unsuspecting victims they can defraud.”
According to Captain Gerda Swart from the Uitenhage police, several cases of car scams on social media have been reported to the Uitenhage police.
Therefore it is important to be aware of some of the techniques and methods the scammers use to potentially buy your vehicle.
The police provided the following modus operandi of scammers reacting on cars for sale on social media:
. The “potential buyer” will contact you, offering to purchase the car immediately without even viewing the car. They often offer more than the requested price, just to secure the deal. This is the first warning sign.
. The scammer will send you proof of payment, with very well-made fake deposit slips from the bank or a fake sms from your bank. These scammers will then get you to release the vehicle, and as soon as they have your car they disappear.
. In some instances these criminals will show up to test drive the car, and once they have the keys disappear without a trace
. The scammers will also be very demanding, once they provide you with proof of payment, which normally happens on a Friday afternoon, it is often not easy to confirm proof of payment with the bank owing to the fact that it is weekend.
. In most of the cases the seller will release the vehicle without verifying with his bank that the payment is indeed reflecting in his account and after two days have passed, the seller will notice that no payment was made and he already released the vehicle to the scammer.
. At this stage all the communications devices the scammer used to communicate with the seller will be deactivated.
Captain Janse van Rensburg gave the following example of an incident which occured on Saturday, 13 March: The complainant placed an advertisement on a social media site to sell his Ford Bantam bakkie. The following day a prospective buyer contacted the complainant. A meeting was arranged between the complainant and the intended buyer to meet in Cape Road, Newton Park.
The buyer and the complainant constantly communicated via WhatsApp. They met each other on Monday, 15 March and the buyer took it for a test drive. The buyer indicated that he was satisfied with the vehicle and his uncle would make the payment via EFT.
The complainant received proof of payment and released the vehicle. But later he realised that the payment never reflected in his bank account, and thereafter he was never able to make contact with the buyer again.
“The community is therefore again urged to approach reputable businesses, shops or car dealerships that are operating within the ambit of the law whenever they want to make purchases,” said Captain Janse van Rensburg.
Police advise that proper research must be done instead of naively relying on advertisements on social media as most of the information tend to be misleading.
The public should also guard against the idea of quickly depositing or transferring cash to unknown people without proper verification.
In the case of the sale of vehicles, the seller must ensure that the relevant transfer administration of the vehicle is completed before handing the vehicle over without any documentation.
