Protecting yourself from the most common scams on the internet takes awareness and common sense. A lot of money changes hands in the collector car world and this makes our hobby an ideal feeding ground for unscrupulous scammers.
The key is to stay alert and learn to spot the warning signs.
99% of scams take the following form:
Cashiers' checks are not cash. Your bank may happily deposit one and make the money available to you. That does not mean it's a good check. Many scams will ask you to deposit the forged check and then wire them a portion of those funds. When the bank realizes the check was bogus you are still responsible for that money.
Scammers have also been using services like Google Checkout to take fake deposits.
Listen to your gut.
You know if a deal is too good to be true. Scammers count on you to ignore your gut. Don't fall for it.
Not all scammers use broken English and clumsy methods. Some of them are genuine confidence men and can seem like trustworthy people to do business with.
Protect your information.
A scammers may request account information such as routing numbers in order to (supposedly) wire funds. Do not provide any information without first checking with your financial institution.
Educate others
Don't assume everyone knows this stuff. We have all been tempted and have or have friends and family members who have fallen for various internet scams. Even if a scam seems obvious to you it may not be so obvious to other people. Talk to your kids, your parents, and your car community. Maybe you are telling everyone something they already know but maybe you are also saving someone a lot of grief and potentially pain.
These people are criminals. Do not engage with them in any way.
Scammers are the kind of unscrupulous thieves who manipulate and steal money from innocent individuals. Don't give them any information about yourself.
Unfortunately there is no surefire way for us to prevent scammers from answering your ads.
We have some of the best email filtering processes in the business but nothing is foolproof. Scammers target all websites where people buy and sell items. Use common sense and proceed with extreme caution when responding to any offers from questionable sources.
Please contact the Webmaster, Brad Balduff, if you have any questions.