I’ve been looking for a van for a good few months now.
Every so often the same one pops for a day then disappears, far too cheap, too good condition and low miles. “Selling on behalf of family member” it always says. And is for sale in Glasgow and London by the same seller.
I used to live where it’s for sale in Glasgow and the pics don’t match the area.

What do they hope to achieve?
Mining e-mails?
Go round with cash and they hit you over the head with a brick?
Nigerian gereral?

I don’t get it.
The ad

I think the Glasgow advert is a mistake by the seller myself.

I know someone who got taken in a similar scam. You wire them the money by some insecure method, they take the money and bugger off. It takes someone a bit thick (or greedy) but they do get some.

1st rule of gumtree is it’s likely either stolen goods or a scam. It’s one of the most popular places for thieves to flog nicked bike stuff.

Too good to be true applies as always, though even a realistic price I’d be very careful.

Gumtree is full of both bargains and scammers

I once bought a nice guitar off eBay, something I’d been on the lookout for a while on Gumtree as well. The day after the auction ended, I was alerted to a new Gumtree ad. The exact same ad had been copied, photos and all, with the price half what I paid. I was sure mine was legit, so I responded to the ad to see what would happen. I got a long message back with an email address which all seemed fairly genuine, not your average Nigerian nonsense. Quick Google found several others had been caught out and transferred money in good faith.

At the same time I’ve had some great finds on Gumtree but I stay local only. And I tend not to give my phone number or address until I’m sure they are not a psycho hose beast.

As above ,just use command sense when on Gumtree , stay local and collect only ,there are so any bargains to be had BUT so many peoples on there that will fleece you

Its me; I keep reporting it as a fake and GT keep deleting it.

I’m in the same boat as you- looking for a van (near Glasgow as it happens) and fed up of the fakes.

As an analogy, it’s similar to fake job recruitment adverts. Loads of recruiters just copy genuine or old adverts, and paste as their own just to get people to send CVs full of details of companies they can contact and of course ask you for your references up front to contact them. They’re as much leaches as estate agents.