Used Car Scam ?

[davery]

So I have been looking for another DD and received an alert today with a car on this website. Some of the cars seem unrealistically priced. For example: 2014 Mercedes-Benz CLA 5.5L-550HP, 30850 miles and no accidents - $17,900.

It states the cars are for sale privately, but they list three lots. One in Houston, Los Angeles and Alabama. What is the scam?

http://www.alautotx.com/

[RRoller123]

Maybe flood damaged insurance totals, bought, cleaned up and resold cheap?

[klweimer]

A lot of the prices on their website look too good to be true... I'd stick with cars I can see and touch and drive.
Kirk

[davery]

I did a search of the addresses and the Birmingham and Los Angeles addresses are non-existent. The Houston address is real warehouse that has two signs on the building. One reads Car Cafe, which apparently is a car detailing and used car lot. The other reads AL Autos TX. Obviously this is a scam, but why would you post a real address in (what looks like) a non-legitimate business? I began wondering if AL Autos TX is a legitimate used car lot and maybe the website was hacked. The website appears to be about 7 years old, probably too long to be a total scam. I guess they hoping people from out of the area will forward down payments for these cars. I sent a couple of emails yesterday to try and find the exact location of the cars, but have not heard back. It could also be an email collection scam. I have a separate email address I use when I'm on these websites, glad I used it.

[davery]

So I have been kind of stalking this guy (guys) the past couple of weeks. It appears he hacks into a legitimate used car website and adds hundreds of cars at ridiculous prices. These then are uploaded to normal websites like cars.com, autotrader.com and carsforsale.com. I have found the same Audi S5 four times over the last couple of weeks. The first time, the car was in Croatia and he would ship to the US for free for me to inspect. I really didn't get into to it very far to find the exact scam before I discontinued the contact. The next time it showed up in Orlando, FL. When I emailed and said I was in Orlando and wanted to look at it I received no reply. Now it is in Philadelphia, PA on a website sight from Idaho. It looks like he has added a few other of "locations" other than California, Alabama and Texas. Here is the current hacked website: http://www.desertwindcustoms.com/invent ... 00&exbs=16

Here is the ad on Carsforsale.com: https://www.carsforsale.com/vehicle/details/31100088

[davery]

.

[davery]

.

[davery]

.

[RRoller123]

Probably posting them to help drive up the prices of legitimate used cars? Salting the market?