What to do with scammers?

[Sabin76]

I was looking at an unbelievable ad for a '94 turbo 6 sp with only 45k miles on it, and was in contact with the "seller" (handle: Jeni Hartford) over the last week. It was in beautiful condition, had a clean title form CARFAX and was selling for $4,900 . She told me she had to get rid of it for "personal reasons," HA!

Of course, a quick search of the VIN she provided on google gave me a whole bunch of listings. The photos matched, but the prices and the seller did not. Apparently, the real listings were for a car that is selling for $38,000 by a certain Mr. Tachibana.

I emailed Mr. Tachibana to let him know that his car was being used in scams, and my question to you is, what should I do to this "Jeni" person, if anything? All I have at this point is "her" email addy and a phone number that I haven't tried to use yet. "She" may very well think that I'm still interested in the deal, so I might be able to get more info out of "her." What can I do to "teach 'her' a lesson" as it were? Any ideas?

[pwpanas]

Originally Posted by Sabin76

I was looking at an unbelievable ad for a '94 turbo 6 sp with only 45k miles on it, and was in contact with the "seller" (handle: Jeni Hartford) over the last week. It was in beautiful condition, had a clean title form CARFAX and was selling for $4,900 . She told me she had to get rid of it for "personal reasons," HA!

Of course, a quick search of the VIN she provided on google gave me a whole bunch of listings. The photos matched, but the prices and the seller did not. Apparently, the real listings were for a car that is selling for $38,000 by a certain Mr. Tachibana.

I emailed Mr. Tachibana to let him know that his car was being used in scams, and my question to you is, what should I do to this "Jeni" person, if anything? All I have at this point is "her" email addy and a phone number that I haven't tried to use yet. "She" may very well think that I'm still interested in the deal, so I might be able to get more info out of "her." What can I do to "teach 'her' a lesson" as it were? Any ideas?

I'm not sure if you'll like my advice, but I'd suggest the best way to deal with scammers is to ignore them. You could waste weeks or months teaching them a lesson, only to have ten other scammers pop up in their place. If you want to buy a Supra, I'd suggest you focus 100% on that. Just mho.

Also, thank you for sharing your information on this particular scammer. Hopefully she doesn't get smart and find a way to make her ad look legit! Your "teaching her a lesson" might inadvertently provide her with info she needs to become a better scammer. Again, I'd suggest you ignore her.

[Sabin76]

Yeah, I've reserved myself to just reporting the scams when I see them (when I can... it seems only cars.com has a "this is a scam" button to press of the major car buying sites). The "escrow service" she wanted me to use also told me they would be investigating the case, so i guess that counts for something.