Buyer Beware
Buyer beware of the latest scam when buying a vehicle in Australia.
This is how it works.
A person will advertise a vehicle for sale in Melbourne, Sydney, or anywhere in Australia,
they will only use a mobile phone number, but they don’t actually own the vehicle to sell.
They will travel interstate and hire a late model vehicle and re-register the vehicle in the state they are selling the vehicle with new plates, and therefore the vehicle will show no record of any prior ownership, therefore its seems like its impossible to determine a fraudulent sale.
But wait it gets worse, they then hang around for a while to retrieve the vehicle in question and return the vehicle interstate to the hire car company with the original plates.
This makes it almost impossible for the police to locate the vehicle, because the vehicle doesn’t actually exist, in the state it was purchased for cash.
The loser is the person who paid cash, and responded to a cheaper then normal price, as well as ringing a mobile number only.
So you think how would you protect yourself from this activity?
1.Don’t purchase a vehicle from only a mobile phone number
2.Get the name and address with a landline number and ring it the next day
3.Ring the vehicle security register in your state and get that certificate send out
4.Try to pay by bank cheque
Finally its always safer to purchase a vehicle from a dealer, don’t you think.
I was shocked to hear about this but not surprised because not all states are communicating with one another, this it makes it very easy to create such a scam as this one.