Ebay, Gumtree & Autotrader Vehicle / Car Scams

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

I'm sure that someone will be along shortly to tell you how to send a pm Jolien - It's not difficult. It's important that these accounts are shut down even though there appear to be thousands of them, possibly tens of thousands, but each one is worth at least £5,000 to this criminal organisation - usually the minimum value of one scam. I, and some others, are regularly responding to fraudulent adverts to get these accounts reported and, being open about what I'm doing, it makes the criminals more wary of buyers and forces them to go to a lot more effort.

Apart from getting the accounts shut down it's also useful for when a complaint is made to the FCA about where and how these accounts are being opened as there is a very clear and obvious pattern emerging which should be investigated by the authorities as a matter of urgency. The current situation is quite insane.

[Jolien]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

Shay, if ever you manage to get account numbers from them, please forward the details to me asap.

I actually have a Barclays account number from "Freightlink Transport", if anyone can take any action with that information, I'll gladly forward it. Not sure whether to post it here directly or to send it in a private message (just don't know yet how to send those)

[Jolien]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

Unfortunately that site seems to be a bit slow to update. They received the following on the 18th of May:-

http://gillerats.com/ Gillera Transport Services Ltd

http://hltcons.com/ H&L Transport and Consulting Ltd

Previous incarnations include:-
Taran\'s Transport Ltd (tarantrans.com)
Clydemorn Ltd
Morgan Transport UK Ltd (morgtran.com)
Ian Parkinson Haulage Ltd (iphaulage.com)
Kenland Overseas Ltd (kenlandoverseasltd.com)
Jones Metcalf Ltd (jonesmetcalf.com)
P & B Robins Transport Ltd (pbrobins.com)
smhaulage.com
transport7.com

Please add flinktrans.com to this list as well.

I got an invoice from them, but something felt wrong and I started googling. And IP check was one of the first I found and that said the site only existed from 07/31 and was registered in China. Searching on their `tagline` (Professional logistics made affordable!) lead me to hltcons.com and gillerats.com. Through another forum (http://fraud.forumandco.com/t4971-smhaulagecom-russia) I even found that the layout has been the same since 2012.

Registered to let this know and hopefully more people will decide to google before paying. And honestly, I'd actually love a service like this to be real...

[Tools]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

Which account boycie and on what date?

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

@dixie2013

Another victim of one of these fraudulent bank accounts set up at Barclays has contacted me at SW. If you want to set up a thread where victims can post and get together to make a joint complaint to the FCA I'll direct him there or, if you prefer I'll set it up and take it from there. In his case it was an apartment rental.

When a lot of victims learn/realise that they have little hope of getting their money they often lose interest but there are a lot of victims and I'm sure that a good proportion will be prepared to join in. Perhaps the FCA are banking on it not being possible but people have to be tenacious and enlist the interest of whatever media they can muster. Recent news reports are helpful and indicative of how widespread this fraud is.

If it's calculated that the value of just the villa rental part of this scam is worth £25m it's frightening to contemplate the total value of fraud which is based on bank accounts opened by criminals. If nothing can be done then Money Laundering Legislation is largely pointless. It's like worrying about loss of water from a bucket by evaporation when the bottom is full of holes.

After a couple of evenings when I noticed that fraudulent adverts were being removed in 'real time' on AT UK, last night (Saturday) was very active with a large number being posted. I don't know whether or not I've referred to this article before but it's worth taking a look at

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/c...ud-victim.html

But this does not explain why so many vehicle sale scams involve accounts at Barclays. Has Barclays become a soft touch as far as opening an account is concerned?
Without too much effort, I found reports of well over a dozen identical frauds, all using accounts at Barclays. Perhaps the bank should put more effort into spotting those high quality fake ID papers – or are other banks just as vulnerable, I wonder?

The comment appears to be made by the journalist. Any complaint to the FCA will be more powerful if not only including people's personal experiences but those of other victims appearing in news reports, which is why I always save links to those stories.

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

I've only just come across this new item and haven't considered all the implications, but it's an example of something that I consider outrageous and utterly unacceptable, and guess what - it involves the usual suspect.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...ier-fraud.html

Using your name and details, the fraudsters had applied and been approved via an online retailer for a £1,418 loan over 24 months with Barclays Partner Finance.

In any instance where a financial organisation has granted finance without making sufficient checks should automatically lose their money when fraud is involved, otherwise it only encourages them to perform scandalously flimsy checks. I haven't read the story in full but the principle is that if I haven't signed an agreement then I have no liability though it's amazing how hard these companies are trying to push for them to be able to enforce agreements against innocent parties.

They want to make getting credit easy to ramp up their business but when it means that it leads to fraud the loss must be at their door. The security questions have no relevance to the victim and do not make them liable whether answered correctly or not.

The problem is that criminals, knowing about faulty these procedures, are ordering items online setting up loans, and then calling at victims houses to collect the goods about which the receiver knows nothing. It's actually putting victims at risk encouraging them to visit victims at home and it could lead to violence or worse.

As previously mentioned, there is no such crime of 'identity theft' and it is promoted because the financial industry wants to be able to rely on very thin procedures to be able to grant loans and credit online, but ironically it's often the financial institutions themselves who are responsible for allowing their customers' details to fall in to the hands of criminals in the first place. The idea of asking 'security questions' from a credit company probably with no conniption with the victim is quaintly flawed. It's like me asking a horse for racing tips. To enforce the loan agreement the company would have to prove that the victim entered in to it and security questions formulated by a third part have no merit or relevance.

Another version of this fraud involves the criminals booking short stays at b&b's and collecting the phone there, so this is far from a new fraud and I have links to the news reports.

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

I have always been strong proponent of this tactic as well as contacting your MP. No matter how much 'support' political parties get from commercial bodies political parties and MP's need the votes of their electorate. Going to the FCA is a method of effectively a method of going over the head of the complaints body, the FCA being the actual regulatory body for financial organisations and there can be no hiding the fact that the ease with which criminals can open bank accounts and use them for fraud underlies hundreds of millions of pounds of fraud annually, and I have links to hundreds of examples.

Today the Daily Telegraph carries a repeat of this story

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...le-conman.html

Hackers may have stolen £25m from holidaymakers in past five years
Victims believe that the police are doing little about the problem

This is exactly the same type of fraud but just relating to villas instead of motor vehicles. It's impossible to stress enough that this type of fraud undermines not only the UK banking system, but also online commercial activity in the UK. If you want some help with wording, technical details and examples I'll be happy to assist. It also appears that some newspapers are taking note, which is always helpful.

There is a tendency for people to believe that victims are at fault or stupid but I would respond that I have noted nearly 600 UK car dealers at SW, including some of the UK's largest, who have been phished since March 2014, and as easily as the FCA may ignore the losses of individuals, it will only take a minor adjustment in tactic by the fraudster to take down each and every one of the companies they phish. I always have to be careful what I say as I do not wish to assist fraudsters but I can spell it out in graphic detail to the FCA if they wish as I hope there is someone there with some understanding of how banks and the internet work.

Thinking about the 'courier fraud' a little more it works quite well to protect any 'rogue' bank staff who may be involved, but when they tell you the last entry on your statement they give the game away. What surprises me is how they can get the information out of the bank. It shouldn't be possible in any bulk form but if procedures are sloppy anything is possible.

[dixie2013]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

boycie wrote : Without wishing to make a political point I have noticed that banks/commercial entities do actually fund various areas of police activity involving financial fraud. This possibly indicates why the complaints of individuals appear to end up in a waste paper basket and, as mentioned in the news report, don't even form part of crime statistics, and yet the police investigate fraud perpetrated against financial institutions up to a year after they take place.

It may make sense for the police to receive commercial 'sponsorship' in this way but there is a risk of it creating a two tier criminal justice system and financial institutions being treated leniently and certainly having their losses investigated more rigorously than ordinary citizens.







that answers my question as to why this online vehicle fraud is going un-noticed and is not in the public eye, POLITICS AND A SEVERE LACK OF RESOURCES the police have and what resources they do have is given to them by financial institutions !!!!!!!!!!!!! , tools when i spoke to the fca regarding this(MULE ACCOUNTS WITH BARCLAYS) they told me that if myself and say 20 others all sent a letter of complaint it would be looked at, if just myself wrote to them it would not be looked at? does anybody have any suggestions that victims can put there name and address to a letterhead that is the same for all victims to send to them please??

dixie2013

[dixie2013]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

here is an up to date list from ecrow-fraud.com

http://escrow-fraud.com/search.php

IT MIGHT HELP PREVENT YET ANOTHER VICTIM OF THIS ONLINE CAR FRAUD LOSING THERE HARD EARNED CASH:

Search for

Currently our databse search will ONLY do an EXACT MATCH search. It WILL search both the Site Name and the site URL (reported address) and the IP Address.
Also searches are case INSENSITIVE and it will do a wild card search. That means as long as it finds the combination of letters you typed in the exact order, regardless of case, it will return a result (if any exisit). Please note that just because a site is not list in this database, it does NOT mean that it is not a fraud. Please use caution. If you are unsure use our Forum or Feedback to get more information.

Next >>
Records 1 thorough 50 of 13373

13506	26-Aug-2014	Courier L-T-L	http://courier-ltl-express.com		46.30.212.70	Layout305
13505	24-Aug-2014	Manager Holiday	http://managerholiday.net		185.7.35.9	Layout315
13504	24-Aug-2014	BeRentals Finder	http://berentalsfinder.com		185.7.35.9	Layout315
13503	24-Aug-2014	BTG Logistics	http://btg-cargo.com		206.188.192.59	Layout99
13502	24-Aug-2014	Burke Agencies Ltd.	http://burkeagencies.net		87.106.158.129	Layout308
13501	21-Aug-2014	Harrods Express	http://harrodsexpress.com		206.188.192.61	Layout311
13500	21-Aug-2014	Saravia Express	http://saraviaexpress.com		206.188.192.127	Layout311
13499	21-Aug-2014	Novair Express	http://novairexpress.com		206.188.192.209	Layout311
13498	21-Aug-2014	Kean Logistics Ireland	http://keanlogistics.com		217.160.170.216	Layout287
13497	19-Aug-2014	Madrigal Spedition	http://madrigal-logistic.com		212.227.195.211	Layout27
13496	19-Aug-2014	RoyalCargus-Express	http://royalcargus-express.net		217.160.171.91	Layout27g
13495	19-Aug-2014	Sky Delivery	http://skydelivery24.com		31.170.167.154	Layout137
13494	19-Aug-2014	World Wide Express Vital	http://wwe-vital-company.com		212.227.195.50	Layout27
13493	19-Aug-2014	Economy Freight Ireland	http://irl-economyfreight.com		217.160.171.156	Layout287
13492	18-Aug-2014	Royal Transport LTD	http://royal-trans-ltd.com		64.32.14.163	Layout99
13491	18-Aug-2014	Transport Systems Western Ltd	http://transportwestern.com		69.195.124.245	Layout99
13490	18-Aug-2014	Transglobal Express Ltd.	http://transglobalexpressfreight.com		192.154.103.92	Layout230
13489	18-Aug-2014	W24-Direct Co.	http://w24-direct.com		192.154.103.92	Layout282
13488	17-Aug-2014	Blg-Courier	http://blgcourier.com		81.169.145.169	Layout305
13487	17-Aug-2014	Transportas Limited	http://transportasltd.com		46.30.212.65	Layout239
13486	27-Jul-2014	Balkan Group SP Z.O.O.	http://balkan-technik.eu		82.165.65.107	Layout99
13485	27-Jul-2014	Balkan Global S.R.O.	http://balkan-global.eu		82.165.71.59	Layout99
13484	27-Jul-2014	Insurian Trading Group	http://insurian-trading-group.com		194.145.208.39	Layout274
13483	27-Jul-2014	Alpin Logistics	http://alpinlogistics.co.uk		217.160.198.167	Layout308
13482	27-Jul-2014	Lts Courier	http://lts-courier.com		46.30.212.31	Layout305
13481	27-Jul-2014	Kiasoll Logistic	http://kiasoll.com		89.31.143.1	Layout288

[dixie2013]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

deleted

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

Apologies for conducting a monologue but I am interested in fraud and particularly that relating to banks as that was my profession and of which I have some knowledge. One area of criticism that banks face with regard to vehicle adverts scams is how much their failure in following secure procedures plays a part in creating an environment suitable for fraudsters to operate. In this vein I found this article interesting relating to what is known as 'courier fraud'. If you don't know what it, the report will explain.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/blo...ey-bank-cards?

This is a very common and widespread fraud and sums that have been stolen from victims recently have been quite staggering.

Not all reports go into as much detail as this one and it's interesting to note that the fraudster didn't only know the victims telephone, number, address, date of birth and name but, importantly the details of his last transaction. Unless his pc had been hacked, and there is no suggestion that anyone believes this happened or someone found statements in his dustbin (though why he'd throw such recent statements in the dustbin makes that unlikely) then there is only one place from which that information could come.

This victim got his money back from the bank and I can imagine why in this case (most are not so lucky), but virtually ever member of staff of a bank has access to customer details, whether they are back office staff, call handlers or cashiers and this information is valuable. If these people are on minimum wage or located abroad the risk is obvious. The concern is that it will not just be the details of one account involved.

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

To amplify a previous point.

http://www.qck.com/bank-and-card-fra...l-198601.html?

It has come to light that if bank and credit card fraud was included in the yearly Crime Survey for England and Wales it would push the number of annual offences up by 50 per cent.

The ONS said in a guide to crime statistics: "Together, plastic card fraud and bank and building society fraud could contribute between 3.6 million and 3.8 million incidents of crime to the total number of Crime Survey of England and Wales crimes.”

[Criminology] Professor FitzGerald commented ….. here we have an admission from its own results that crime is 50 per cent higher than the figure it claims

Unfortunately when producing statistics to measure their own success or failure all governments find it easiest to achieve improvement by manipulating the figures. The ridiculous thing is that the temptation is greatest where the public are most likely to recognise that the figures don't reflect reality.

Curiously another story I mentioned about a massive fraud involving bank cards and the use of a doctored card machine to double swipe cards has disappeared from all websites. Such things pique my interest but what intrigues me more than anything is that the story and details remain on the official DCPCU website here

http://www.financialfraudaction.org....ng%20final.pdf

The DCPCU itself is interesting as it states

The Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit (DCPCU) is a unique pro-active police unit, with a national remit, formed as a partnership between Financial Fraud Action UK, the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police together with the Home Office. It is fully sponsored by the cards and banking industries, with an on-going brief to investigate, target and, where appropriate, arrest and seek successful prosecution of offenders responsible for card, cheque and payment fraud crimes.

Basically it is an industry supported arm of the police, not something with which I am particularly comfortable, Though it trumpets its successes and the money it has saved, undoubtedly that is primarily money saved by the financial industry not the public. Even in this case the loss would be borne by the card issuers but in spite of the story claiming the success of the prosecution, in spite of the massive amount involved, the prison sentence was only suspended and precious little money was recovered. Beyond that, the fact that anyone can so easily perform card fraud and cards are actually quite vulnerable, there are good reasons the financial industry wouldn't want this story to be widely circulated, but as long as it remains on a site supported by the police, the Home Office and the financial industry, I can see no issue.

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

Without wishing to make a political point I have noticed that banks/commercial entities do actually fund various areas of police activity involving financial fraud. This possibly indicates why the complaints of individuals appear to end up in a waste paper basket and, as mentioned in the news report, don't even form part of crime statistics, and yet the police investigate fraud perpetrated against financial institutions up to a year after they take place.

It may make sense for the police to receive commercial 'sponsorship' in this way but there is a risk of it creating a two tier criminal justice system and financial institutions being treated leniently and certainly having their losses investigated more rigorously than ordinary citizens.

The whole concept of ad sites is quite interesting. It must be the only business where providing a service that can actually harm those doing business through it does not harm its turnover. Of course that depends on this fact not being widely known, otherwise the business will collapse and why any Google search relating to fraud and any ad site will generally lead you to the ad site's pages on the topic.

In many respect it's the ultimate in consumers being informed by the advertising with no independent judgement of their effectiveness. It's actually quite bizarre that advertisers pay to advertise on any site where they are undercut every day by fraudsters. I'd use a site to see what cars a local dealer has in stock but beyond that I wouldn't waste my time.

I was interested to see that one holiday villa rental company offered insurance to protect against being defrauded but banks played that game, offering protection (from which they profited) to cover losses in a risky product they marketed. The concept of marketing something defective for which the consumer has to buy protection, thereby increasing the company's profits, grates on my nerves. Ad sites won't do it as it acknowledges the risk in using their site.

On an unrelated topic this new item is worth noting

http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/n...s/11432417._/?

Surbiton fraudsters spared prison after £1.6m chip and pin scam

The headline itself is quite remarkable, but even more serious is that the story demonstrates how vulnerable even the CHIP and PIN system has become. Once upon a time merchant trader facilities were very difficult to secure but they are now handed out like candy simply because they are a means of generating profit for financial institutions. Since this involves 'double swiping' cards I would imagine that the card company takes the loss but probably only after much hassle with the victim.

One interesting point is that AT UK approach problems like this from the point of view of an internet advertiser understandably, and they monopolise any search on Google about fraud related to their site. However when it comes to specific searches on terms such as the email addresses and domains used by fraudsters, and even the identities of cars used in frauds, then Google leads potential victims straight to sites warning people of the fraudulent adverts. Unfortunately the fraudsters have been back with a vengeance tonight on AT UK.

[dixie2013]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

i understand what you mean tools but it puzzles me as to why "THE MEDIA/PRESS" are not interesested in asking financial institutions how and why there are 1000's of mule accounts being opened daily for the sole purpose of commiting fraud and money laundering?, just as puzzling is the "MEDIA/PRESS" not wanting to know why online vehicle ad sites are not taking fraud on a daily basis seriously and why they(car ad sites) are not protecting there(me , you and everyone else) customers/users of there site? . Surley not every crime on a scale like this needs a victim to gain the ear of there viewers/readers?, i have come to the conclusion that some very very expensive briefs are putting obstacles in place to prevent the media/press from even thinking of doing a story/piece on this matter.

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scams

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-included.html

Official crimes figures 'failing to report 4m fraud cases' meaning total number of offences should be 50% higher

Victims of the fraud detailed in this thread will already be aware of this.