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Vehicle Matching Scams: Knocking The Hustle

Working in sales is no easy task. Believe me, I’ve done my time. My experiences while studying at University were suitably grueling, and those years as part-timer have made me somewhat sympathetic to the practice. Always being treated with suspicion and irritation will do that to you, I suppose. Still, despite my appreciation for the hardship of the task, there is a good reason why cold-calling is met with typical hostility.

Beyond the inconvenience of being sold something you don’t particularly want as you’re about to hop in the shower or eat dinner, cold-calling is a go-to tactic for con artists and fraudsters. These are the individuals that are scamming hard-working citizens for millions of dollars of hard earned money every year, and private vehicle sales provide a tempting platform.

I’m talking about vehicle-matching scams; third party salesman that cold-call seller's - details conveniently provided in their advertisements - touting clientele ready-and-waiting to purchase the vehicle. Their price for this attractive service? Just a small matcher’s fee up-front.

Unfortunately, there isn’t actually any potential buyers lined up and the person on the phone isn’t a professional agent. In fact, he’s a con artist, hustling a vehicle matching scam. But once the paperwork has been signed, there’s no reneging on the deal and the money you have exchanged as a matcher’s fee is lost.

As with any scam - and most successful cold-call sales, for that matter - the operation works by playing on the emotions of the seller and pressurizing them into an offer they are made to believe would be mad to refuse. Avoiding such a pitfall by staying strong and sticking to your guns sounds easy enough, but the prospect of a quick sale and the charm of a professional scammer tend to make people ignore common sense.

Indeed, speaking with a British newspaper, Peter Stratton, a representative from the Trading Standards Institute stated: 'High-pressure selling alongside cold calling makes this a very successful scam, often leaving the consumer with very little chance of obtaining redress.'
Philip, Scott "Crackdown on the car sale con artists" DailyMail.com 28 May. 2009

In fact, the scam is such a prevalent problem in the UK that it accounts for over $3.7 million a year.

So, while I encourage recipients of cold-calling salesman to try and cut the poor souls behind the phones a bit of slack, I’d suggest being equally skeptical of individuals full of too-good-to-be-true sounding promises. Obviously, anytime you are asked for money in advance, there’s usually something awry, but more importantly, don’t allow yourself to get swept away by the prospect of a quick and easy sale. Stop, think and question any person who claims that there are immediate buyers for your car, that finance has already been prearranged, or that these buyers are willing to pay more than the asking price. These sorts of assurances should sound alarm bells ringing, especially if they come with the added perk that you’ll be refunded if the car doesn’t sell.

The bottom line is to always do business face-to-face and avoid anybody who doesn’t share that philosophy.

Comments (1) -

Scammer contact me and I instantly knew it was a scam. Played along with it long enough to get the true email address and had it traced to the original orgin. Busted this scammer

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