Fraud victim

[Madis123]

Hello

Just so you know I was a first time buyer

So I just found out I have fallen victim of a fraud.
I'am from Estonia and wanted to buy a car. The car that stood out for me was on an Estonian car selling website. So I contacted the seller and he said the car was in The Netherlands, but registered in Estonia. He gave me a story on how he worked in Estonia and stuff and now moved back to the Netherlands.

So I asked all the information on the car, the VIN, registration. He gave them to me. So in Estonia there is this website: ostatargalt.ee, there you can check everything about the car and so I did. It all seemed fine to me. It even said there, that the car was brought form The Netherlands and registered used in Estonia.
So I agreed to buy. He said let's use an escrow service. I had no experience at all with it, so I'm a complete sucker. I did have my hesitations and almost did not go for it, but the temptation was too big. I also did some checks before, how not to get frauded, but I guess that didn't work.

Anyway, so I got this e-mail from a company and it all seemed very proffessional. So i payed the initial deposit, which was 50% as the company said, so 2300 euros. They responded they received it and that the truck with my car was on the way to my house. But the next day I received an e-mail again from the company saying that their truck was being held up in Germany customs, because of some tax problems or something, that the delivery company had to show the documents saying that the car was payed in full. The company sent me a document that the German customs sent to them. To me it seemed real on a quick clance. I even checked the coustoms website, seemed OK.

Now the delivery company wanted for me to pay the other half of the price as well. But this time they gave me a different bank account to transfer the money. To a German bank, before it was an English bank. They said to transfer the money to their Finacial Agent in Germany so the transaction would be faster and the delivery process could proceed faster. So I did it.

So the car was originaly set to be at my house on 05.05.14, but it did not come for a week after that. They did not answer any of my e-mails and now some days ago I started to look in to it. I searched online and the more I searched the more I knew I had been conned. And to be sure I sent the document that the delivery company sent me saying that the truck was held up in Germay customs to Germany customs. And today I got the response: Saying the document is not genuine and is a fraud.

I immediately contacted my bank and pulled the payments back, but that is a reaaaal longshot I will ever it back. I also wrote to a site called action frauds, maybe they can identify the bastard or bastards. So now I think im out 4600 euros which is was pretty much everything I had. I worked really hard to get that money to buy a car and now I think its gone.

Now thinking back I was the dumbest person on the planet to fall for such a thing. There were so many signs, but I was all caught up in getting a new car. STUPID!!

Now for the e-mails:

The sellers Email: adellefam72@gmail.com
The companies Email: info@t-act-ltd.com
The companies website: http://t-act-ltd.com (I checked the IP and now I also see, that the domain was only registered 3 month ago)

Is there more I can do to get my money back?

Anyway, thanks for reading!

[lightfair]

Hello;

I'm sorry to hear about your losses. Unfortunately the story is very typical: If the victim had paid part of the money the scammers naturally try to make him pay the rest as well.

Please post the bank data, too.

Have you already filed a report with your local police? If not, please do this by all means. It's important that law enforcement gets an idea how widespread this type of fraud is and starts investigating accordingly.

From previous experiences I'd say the scammers are most likely from Romania.

Usually the money is withdrawn from the bank accounts very quickly. You can try the following: If you have filed a report/complaint with the police you could hand a copy of this to your bank. Tell them to contact the receiver banks and make them aware that the accounts are used for criminal purposes. Sometimes this helps to "freeze" the remaining funds in those accounts.

[Madis123]

Thank you for the response. I will go to the police as fast as I can.

PAYMENT DETAILS:

The first one was this:

Account Holder: TRANSPORT ACTION
Name of Bank: BARCLAYS BANK PLC
Address of Bank: 1 CHURCH ROAD, BURGEES HILL, WEST SUSSEX, RH15 9BD
Account number: 43328465
IBAN: GB18 BARC 2049 7643 3284 65
SWIFT (BIC): BARCGB22
Country: UNITED KINGDOM
Amount: 2.300,00 EUR

And second was this:

PAYMENT DETAILS:

Account Holder: VALERICA DINCA
Name of Bank: DEUTSCHE BANK
Address of Bank: BETENSTRASSE 11-17, 44137, DORTMUND, GERMANY
Account number: 152911400
IBAN: DE40 4407 0024 0152 9114 00
SWIFT (BIC): DEUTDEDB440
Country: GERMANY
Amount: 2.300,00 EUR