Browsing ebay I have noticed a load of cheap motorhomes, all around £5k.

Some are form the same seller (but different locations around the UK).

Is it some kind of scam?

Examples:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4

obvious scam is obvious.

they will want money in escrow then they will deliver the van

van will never come

the money wont be in your escrow by the time you do anything about it

you have neither van nor money and good luck finding the perp .

run a million miles – and then a million more.

Yes, it’s a scam. I’ve reported to ebay.
I was interested in the Boxer minibus.
Here are the emails:

Hi there
Is this minibus available to view today?
Is it still in Stafford?

Cheers
Alex Simon

Hello,
I still have the minibus for sale, the condition is excellent and it has no damages or any faults. All necessary documents available. My current location is N.Ireland due to my work commitments. If this is going to be a quick sale, I will let it go for £4,800 delivered at my costs.
The deal will go through eBay and PayPal.
Thank you

Tracey

Hi Tracey
Can I come and test-drive the vehicle?

Cheers
Alex

I will agree for a 7 days of full inspection period ( after the date you receive the van ). This means that you have 7 days to inspect the van for any damages and decide if you want to keep it or not!
Because I will sign eBay’s return policy, your money will be insured by them and you will have the option to reject the deal, only if we go through PayPal as well. If this is the case, you will receive a full refund (money back) from PayPal and I will have to take the van back on my cost!
You can read more about it following the link below:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/buy/contextual/return-policy.html

Let me know if the above return policy is acceptable and if you want to purchase the van please confirm your PayPal email for further instructions.

Tracey

For reference, there isn’t any such protection on vehicles.
If you can’t touch it, don’t buy it.

Please report it too, so that Ebay might actually do something about it.

email again and ask if it’s a scam where you pay the money over and no van appears?

Reported both accounts

Whereas, you seemingly can pick up cheap motorhomes in Northern Ireland, presumably having a smaller market and being a bawache to get to and from for inspection.

Isn’t that where write off/stupid high milers get exported to to be brought back to life /reimported with the id on stolen vans ?

Certainly an issue with landies/t5s

If they’d used more realistic prices I’m sure they’d sucker more people in.

The insistence on PayPal is a giveaway as well, thats to build buyer confidence but at the last minute their paypal account will stop working and they’ll demand payment by Western Union or some other untraceable method.

A friend saw a ridiculously cheap motorhome on E bay.
As he was abroad he contacted the seller,before parting with any money,to ask if he could have it delivered to a relatives address in the UK.This gained the sellers my friends e mail address.
The seller agreed to the delivery and shortly afterwards a Paypal e mail appeared in my friends inbox.This contained a bank account number to transfer the money to,which my friend duly did.Then heard nothing.
Contacting Paypal they told him they never send this type of e mail and it was at this point he realised he had been scammed.
The police could do nothing,and they believed it had originated in Eastern Europe.
He lost £5300,and to add insult to injury it was the bit of money left after his house had been repossessed and auctioned.

As above the paypal link they send or the escrow services dont exist.
If you offered to name the escrow service you would like to use they would run mile.

Ebay is full of these. Classic car market on there is even worse. I recon over half of the classics for sale are scams.
Look on ”other items for sale” there is always a digger or two and lots of motorhomes.
AVOID.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/petulo55/m.html?item=292071792719&hash=item4400d5e04f%3Ag%3Az7gAAOSw2gxY3WNr&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562
There you go. Take a look at the stuff this guy is selling. Hes got campers, Diggers, Tractors and of course the obligatory classic cars.

He really must think people are stupid.

whats amazing that he seems to have a different location for each vehicle he is ‘selling’!

He really must think people are stupid.

And he’d be right.

Its not just high value items. Bloke at work was raving about this chainsaw deal, and as I’d just broken the tensioner on mine I asked him for the link.

He was itching to click as it was cheap and there were just a few left, however the seller keeps upping the quantity so the auction is always ‘almost gone’.

He even said the words ‘I can’t believe its so cheap’

There is another seller with the same image and description selling for £50 more, its clearly designed to trigger an impulse buy. The feedback is 40 but only a few are for ‘selling’ and those items are things like bridal gowns. The account has been dormant for over a year. He’s also got a delivery date of a couple of weeks away to allow time to sell before the negative feedbacks start flooding in.

I reported it to ebay as fraudulent, and so did my colleague once I’d convinced him. Several days later its still there, with another 100 odd ‘invisible’ chainsaws sold.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Petrol-Chainsaw-58cc-3-4HP-20-Saw-Blade-2-Chains-Bar-Cover-Bag-Tool-Kit-/112350814986?hash=item1a28a1630a:g:e44AAOSwuxFY2pDo

The same vehicles have popped up on 4 different accounts since!
I’m trying to report them, but it seems Ebay don’t have a way to automatically block these.

There was an article ‘somwhere’ online a few years ago about why these scams seem SOOO obvious.

Initially you would think “if they made the price a bit more reasonable, then people would be less suspicious”.

However, they want to completely turn off those with any shred of suspicion. If you ‘fall’ for the idea of buying a van that’s too good to be true, then they know they can reel you in good and proper.

It’s a bit like those “i’m your nigerian cousin, Prince Asabubu” emails.
We know it’s rubbish.
But, if you fall for it/go along with it, then the scammers know they are onto real easy pickings.

Interesting psychology of scamming.

DrP

It is a shame that there is nowhere to enter comments when reporting stuff to ebay. It would be good to point out that the same thing is happening with the same vehicles under different accounts.

Yes, my thoughts too eskay. Although Ebay are probably aware of the type of scam.

“He lost £5300“

“He really must think people are stupid“

QED.

If you ‘fall’ for the idea of buying a van that’s too good to be true, then they know they can reel you in good and proper.

I’d add in the rush to gain the “unique opportunity” of a single item at a bargain price – buy it now before someone else beats you to it,

Disc wheels now.

This wheel from China:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322500764687

Looks very similar to this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Quest-Track-Road-Disk-wheel-Shimano-9-10-Sp-Tubular-/282418813903

Reported