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Whats the scam here?


dave21478

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I found this classified ads site the other day, www.adoos.fr and there are people giving away a lot of stuff for free. Now, this does happen and websites in uk like freecycle are flourishing, but generally its old and unwanted stuff people give away. If you type "donne" into the search box for that site, people are supposedly giving away completely free stuff like this morning  a 2005 VW Golf tdi, various quads and motorbikes, camper vans, tractors and plant equipment, laptop pc`s, pedigree dogs etc etc. Most have a brief story along the lines of they are giving the item away due to the death of a relative or leaving to go abroad. Im sure this probably does happen every now and then in genuine circumstances, but this site has dozens of ads like these on a daily basis. No matter how pressed you may be to leave the country, nobody gives away a €20k car.

Obviously, its a scam, but how does it work? I assume these people will want some kind of payment upfront for transport or to cover some other costs and once they have the cheque thats the last you hear of them?

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The scam is that the cars, or computers, or whatever, are located elsewhere, and the person giving the article wants the transport costs covered. Up front. Before delivery. Paid via Western Union. It appears that the site is being used by scammers based in Benin.

Regards

Pickles

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when I was young my dad was looking for a small cabin cruiser boat and came across and advert for a very fancy luxurious model that usually would have been way out of his price bracket... he assumed a few noughts had been left off the price and ignored it.  A few weeks later, whilst down by the coast he spotted the boat and mentioned the typo to the chap on board.  Turned out that it was not an error... what should have read £20,000 really was £20 and someone got an dream gift!  Apparently the chap was in the middle of a nasty divorce and was selling everything for nothing... bizarre but true... and only about two people phoned as they all thought it was a typo too [:)]
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reminds me of a story - possible urban myth - about a chap who saw a Jaguar car advertised for £20 and thought it was a typo but rang up anyway. Went to see it and it was true - the woman was selling it for £20. Apparently she had been widowed and her husband's will said that she must sell the car upon his death and give the proceeds to his son, who'd been a real pig to her. The thing was, the will didn't specify that she must sell it at a market price, hence the low advertised price.

Urban myth? Perhaps but it's a good story
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