I not working this one out but there are certainly too many alarm bells ringing..

My Father wants to drop about £5k on a VW T5. He’s not on the internet and is relying on me to search & pass telephone numbers on to him and relate condition etc..Now I know the whole Escrow scam & bankers-draft shipping scams but this….??

Nice n shiny 2007 T5 135k miles £5.5k ( not necessarily a ‘if it sounds too good to be true’ scenario )

Polish seller living in Wales
Photo shows RHD van with Polish plates on it.
Seller tells dad the Van is on Irish plates CF 117 EZ
can’t meet him as there’s no MOT on it but will go and get an MOT for him..
can you even get a MOT in the UK on Irish plates?

not one to stereotype but certainly too many variables to make me want to tell him to walk away.

update..dad has phoned his insurance to get a quote and they don’t recognise the reg. Dad relates this to the seller and gets given a ‘I’m sorry I made a mistake’ the reg is 07 G 4908..to which the insurance draw another blank. Dad phones the seller to say that he’s not interested any more and the seller offers to bring the van to him…

Glad he’s out of that.

I think it’s probably a wrong’un anyway at that price and mileage too.
Anyway – right call. Proper dodge.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, sh*ts on your lawn like a duck, then it’s most probably a duck………

Sounds dodgy. Moderate chance it’s not. Too risky.

Found this with 2 mins googling on irish gov website

Vehicle Registration Number 07G4908
Vehicle Details VOLKSWAGEN / SHUTTLE

That detail also matches a red transporter being sold in Cardiff on gumtree

I’m not up on cars/car buying but my friends dad works in the scrap/salvage/repairables and he said a lot of the ones certified unrepairable are being bought by Poles, and repaired over there and then re-imported bypassing any checks you can do here. No idea on the true scale of this but if it’s feasible then obviously people will look to exploit that loophole.
(Before anybody calls me out as being a racist my other half is from Katowice.)
The other thing to watch out for is if something is stolen from another country and it doesn’t show up checking here, a freiends business lost a Range Rover this way, they purchased in good faith from a dealer in the U.K. only for it to be impounded in Italy when they popped over the border from Morzine. It was used for their chalet business and they have been told not to expect to see the money or vehicle again 😯

Loads of scams. Look at sellers other items and see if they have other vans and where they are located. When we were looking we found several sellers with lots of vans scattered across the country which suggested it was dodgy

Is £5k for a legit T5 that still runs a little optimistic?

Veering slightly OT from libelling Welsh Poles, but in the past I’m sure I’ve heard of wrecked exotics being bought in Japan then fixed up over here, and the interesting parts of their history “going missing” somewhere along the line.

Rightly or wrongly I’d be very wary of anything that is / has been on foreign plates.

Is £5k for a legit T5 that still runs a little optimistic?

An apparent bargain is a common feature of scams where payment is made and no vehicle arrives/exists.

If it’s still on Irish plates do you not have to pay some sort of import duty to get it onto UK plates and mot’d. So the lower price is reflective of the duty due? I know thats how it works going from UK to ireland. Anyway, too much hassle and iffy.

When I was buying mine I was warned that Irish plated T5’s often had “odometer discrepancies” when they came over the Irish Sea. No MOT history to check

But ultimately, I’d be very very very nervous about buying a £5k T5. It’s just not enough money.

You’re lucky to get a decent condition T4 for that money now, but likely to have 200K+ on the clock

chrismac – Member
Loads of scams. Look at sellers other items and see if they have other vans and where they are located. When we were looking we found several sellers with lots of vans scattered across the country which suggested it was dodgy

Saw something similar recently with motor homes on ebay:

singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/cheap-motorhomes-on-ebay

Veering slightly OT from libelling Welsh Poles, but in the past I’m sure I’ve heard of wrecked exotics being bought in Japan then fixed up over here, and the interesting parts of their history “going missing” somewhere along the line.

There was/is a Exige V6 on eBay at the moment that was crashed in Japan. Would be unregistered damage here!

can you even get a MOT in the UK on Irish plates?

IIRC you can get an MOT, or the local equivalent, on any EU registered vehicle, in any EU country. Within the UK, as long as the vehicle has a VIN, it can be tested.

However, it does then mean it will show as not having a valid MOT on the registered country’s database (if they have a computerised system that is), so you have to go back to proving the vehicle is tested by presenting bits of paper when needed.

For Republic of Ireland, you Insure the car on its VIN plate number, then take it to an MOT station in UK. Once you have that certificate you take all the documents you have for the car to a DVLA office. There is a registration fee and you pay for the TAX then they send you the new REGISTRATION document and TAX DISC with the UK reg plate they have given you.

Perhaps not one for your dad, but I wouldn’t discount it for a clued up local buyer.