WARNING ELAN FRAUD

[Jens]

EDIT

Double post.

[worzel]

Hi

I know exactly where Utting Ave East is located as I used to drive past there every day for years on the way home. I've not yet looked at numbers on houses but I'm pretty sure there will be a number 9. The area in which the avenue is located is mixed in terms of housing types- number 8 will be either privately owned or still rented from a Liverpool Housing Association. I wouldn't draw any inferences from that info- rented doesn't of itself mean low income etc and for years just around the corner from Utting Ave East there was a guy who had a mint plus 2 for about 12 years. I'll check it out later today to see 3exactly where number 9 is.

Regards

John

[gino1]

Hi Bill,
Hang on a mo....why should "she" be Italian or even Sicillian after all she is called Johanna !!!

I got ripped off for 2 grand by a Scotch bloke supposedely living in Arbroath, that after police investigation lives in Luton !!

May he have been italian too ??

Gino
Milano
italy

[Dag-Henning]

- touche'...

[Elanintheforest]

Gino, he almost certainly would have had some Italian blood, after all, you invaded us 2000 years ago! However, it would have been Dag-Hennings ancestors, the Norwegian Vikings, who are probably the main ones to blame for anything that the Brits (and consequently the Americans, Australians, Kiwis and a few others) have done.

Even the Normans, who completely subverted the British culture, were Vikings who invaded France 400 years earlier than they came over to Britain.

That completes my understanding of the history of the world!

Mark?.happy to be a mongrel

[gino1]

Hi All,
Just reading this thread from the begining has just reminded me of an advert I reported last week as a possible scam on
www.autoscout24.it that advertised an S2 Elan for sale at 7200 Euro. The advertiser was from Holland. (Now who invaded Holland ?? )
The price caught my attention and I wrote to the site moderator who removed it the following day.

Just in case anyone sees this again up for sale, beware.
The low price, as someone else quite rightly mentioned, should be an obvious sign that something is wrong.
Let's face it, good basket case Elans are going for 10 grand today and an S2 for resto will go from 15 to 20 grand therefore anything under these prices should be dealt with extreme caution.
By the way if you look at this site above..go and see the high prices compared to the poor level of quality of these elans that are for sale.

Gino
Milano
Italy
S2 1965/S3 1965/S3 1967/Plus 2 1968

[billwill]

Hi Bill,
Hang on a mo....why should "she" be Italian or even Sicillian after all she is called Johanna !!!

I got ripped off for 2 grand by a Scotch bloke supposedely living in Arbroath, that after police investigation lives in Luton !!

May he have been italian too ??

Gino
Milano
italy

Sigh.

I doubt that the name Joanna has any significance, I doubt that the crim is female.

Joanna is almost certainly the same person as the one who 'owns' the domain name EKM-express.com, because that person also owns a whole bunch of similar domain names for making more fake escrow/transport companies. So it is either a gang of criminals or one person with both identities. The domains are registered in Italy to "Toni Materazzi". Now that might be fake because it seems to also be the name of a famous Football (?) player. Registering a domain might require a valid postal address (it used to in the UK), so there is a greater chance that the registration address exists. via Colonnello Tommaso Masala 55, Rome, Rome, it 00148

It is in Italy, hence my comment above.

[ardee_selby]

<snip> I doubt that the name Joanna has any significance, I doubt that the crim is female. Joanna is almost certainly the same person as the one who 'owns' the domain name EKM-express.com, because that person also owns a whole bunch of similar domain names for making more fake escrow/transport companies. It is in Italy, hence my comment above.

Bill,

Do the "Technical" & "Billing" contacts, being in Selangor, mean ANYTHING at all in this scenario?

Per http://whois.domaintools.com/ekm-express.com

WRT OP "This company got good feedback on e-bay..." Presumably another fake website rather than fake feedback on a genuine ebay?

[Jens]

Just my tuppence...

The Selangor part doesn't really mean anything at all. That's just the billing adress of the company that hosts the website, in this case Netonboard.com.

They have probably chosen that host because Netonboard seems to be pretty cheap, a domain name can be registered for about ?8.50 a year and really don't seem to be that keen on who they are doing business with. Having said that, the idea of Tony Materazzi being a completely fake name is probably true. I just tried to register a domain name under the name of Jackie Stewart using a completely phoney adress in Montserrat (Dutch town, dutch state, Montserrat as coutry, Poostreet 123 as street, phone number set to 112 911 123 45) and all they want me to do now is pay 35 ringgit via PayPal to give me control over the domain name.

The only security they seem to use is a log of the IP adress, now that is really easy to work around by using a proxy.

I think the trail stops at Netonboard and that the only chance of getting these idiots is to catch them red handed unless a bank used feels a need to help out.

Cheers
Jens

[Leo Leentvaar]

I think I found a smilar thing on the Dutch Lotus Club site.
Austrian car , imported from Holland, S4SE

http://www.lotusclubholland.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=870:aangeboden-lotus-elan-s4-se-&catid=22:te-koop&Itemid=39

Or am I getting suspiscious now.
Lastly who buys a car unseen over the net anyway (sorry, too good to be true just like the millions that I won and the inhertances from Nigeria)

[Steve G]

Hi Ray

I'm very sorry to hear what has happened to you. I can only help by saying that I think you and many other forum members are barking up the wrong tree. The very nature of internet fraud is that it is all just an illusion, there is no Johanna, no Elan (most likely one used to exist but is now scrap), no Liverpool address (that has any relation to the fictitious people involved anyway) and no shipping company! Your car, which probably doesn't exist, was never loaded onto a trailer, the shipping company and the fictitious owner were invented by the same person who could be anywhere in the world.

When I bought my car, the previous owner would not even accept a banker's draft, I had to withdraw ?12,000 in ?50 and ?20 notes specially ordered from a branch of HSBC and take them with me! I couldn't really understand why he was so cautious until he told me that people have been forging bankers drafts. There really is no safe method of payment, for a buyer or a seller of a car. It wasn't very safe for me to drive out into the middle of West Sussex with ?12,000 in cash so I took a mate with me (I was paranoid someone was following me out of the bank!) PayPal is pretty good as it is insured against fraud but it still gets used by criminals every day.

I think you are doing the right thing by informing all of the relevant authorities but these things always take time. Keep writing to them and they will respond eventually, when it's more trouble for them to ignore your letters than to answer them. I'm afraid it is unlikely that you will get your money back but if you can bring this person to justice then it will be some recompense.

Don't give up on your dream, this is a heavy blow but if at some point in the future, especially if you reclaim your money, you want to find another Elan then combine it with a holiday to the UK and go and see as many cars as you can. There really is no such thing as a cheap Elan, even in a legitimate sale. Generally, for every ?1,000 you save on the original purchase price, it will cost you ?2,000 in the first year!

Good Luck

Regards

Steve Gunnis
(my real name!)

[paddy]

A friend of mine did a stupid thing and put a photo of his passport (the main details page) on Flickr.

Soon afterwards, someone (in Germany) was using his identity to sell stolen cars. By investigating a series of incidents, he was able to trace the individual to a fairly specific location, and passed the details to UK and German police.

No action was taken, and he still gets calls regularly (at least one a month) from people checking his credentials, so the scammer is obviously still carrying on unhindered.

Unfortunately, I don't think the police have the bandwidth/motivation/capability to investigate this kind of "petty" offence when their online fraud divisions are dealing with the explosion of serious online crimes for multiple millions of dollars.

Paddy

[Ray]

Hello all,

Gino1,
15 to 20 K for a resto? How about this for less than 18K?
http://www.churchsquareautos.com/sales.asp

Jens,
Got your message and will reply. You talked about a bank willing to help. How can a fraud get hold of a bankaccount at BARCLAYS BANK? If I want to open an account I have to send a copy of my passport. Below are the details I got by e-mail from EKM-Express.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to Safe Exchange rules, it is the Buyer?s turn to proceed with the payment.

Below are our bank details for a details for a bank transfer:

Bank: Barclays
Bank Branch: Kenton Park Parade Branch, London, United Kingdom
Account name: EKM Express
Account number: 33289575
Sort Code: 20-37-16
IBAN: GB82 BARC 2037 1633 2895 75
BIC: BARCGB22
Transfer reason: 342921

The total amount you have to send is 7200 euro.

* When sending the payment, please use the details exactly as they appear above. Incorrect, incomplete or additional details may bring delays to your payment and transaction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMPORTANT INFO ABOUT THE PAYMENT CONFIRMATION:

After you have sent the payment, please send an e-mail at [email protected] with the tracking number and a copy (or photo) of your payment receipt. We will forward it to the bank, and the payment will be verified.

Upon payment verification, we will ship the vehicle to your address and will update the tracking information accordingly. Delivery times vary by destination from 3 to 7 working days.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,
Marcus Peterson

Customer Service Representative
EKM Express SafeExchange

24H Online Support
[email protected]
www.ekm-express.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leo Leentvaar,,

I am sure this is a fraud.

http://www.collectioncar.com/detailed.p ... =1&lang=nl

The seller does not exist. I tried to contact him but no answer.

Steve Gunnis,

Yes I was a bit stupid to pay for the Lotus this way. Especially as I had just sold a Jaguar XK140 FHC to someone from Poland. The first thing I thought was that he would pay with counterfeit money and leave the country with the Jag and its documents leaving me behind with bad money. In the end he paid with notes of 50 euros. He accompanied me to the bank where it was counted.

Regards, Ray

[RogerFrench]

Here's another fraudulent "Sale". The car is real, Petra Hackner is not.

http://www.adoos.fr/post/10024777/lotus_europa_special_1975

The car was owned at one time by Peter Hackner, and a lot of information about it can be found on the web. Unfortunately, Peter sold it quite a while back. "Petra" told the Liverpool story, etc., etc., but I know a young man who was very disappointed when no car showed up.

[gino1]

Hi Ray,

The car I intended was an S1 / S2 that is pre or up tp 1965.. The S3 in the link is a very nice car and is indeed an excellent price, if the car is really true to their description.
I think that this is possibly worth more and only lower priced as this garage primarily sells MG's.
I don't think you'd find this priced as such at a proper Lotus dealer..

Gino
Milano
Italy