(This is a long post, but spells out an apparent scam you should be aware of)
It was painful to read forum member Brian in NL's account of a car that was advertised for sale, that he thought was real, that wasn't. There are so many of these kinds of scams out there. As I posted in reply to his original thread, I have had photos I've taken and descriptions I've written of cars I was selling (on eBay, Hemmings, etc.) simply copied and pasted into various classified websites, around the world, by scammers who put 'too good to be true' low prices on the ads and their contact info, just waiting for someone to send them a few thousand dollar deposit.
This is the tale of a suspicious email I got about a month ago:
This email was forwarded to me, by two different friends of mine from our local Mercedes-Benz Club, on the same day, within about 15 minutes of each other - which means, they both got the original email at the same time. When friends of mine get these kinds of emails, they often forward them to me, thinking I might be able to do something with them, as putting buyers and sellers of old cars together is part of my job.
The reference to a 'David Williams' as the person who referred the sender to the people he sent the email to is not anyone any of us know.
The email came from:
Paul Klein - paul.klein1969 at gmail.com
The person he claims referred him was: David Williams - davewxk120 at gmail.com
Hello,
I apologize for my email. David Williams (here in copy of this email) referred me to you.
I'm looking to buy an early 50's to 60's Mercedes 190 SL or Pagoda.
I'm also interested on a Adenauer 300 or Ponton.
I'm familiar with the restoration, i will consider any condition.
Please let me know if you can help. Any advice will be appreciated.
I'm very serious and will not waste your time.
Thanks in advance,
Paul
So I wrote and email to this Paul Klein and attached some photos of a 190SL I was representing for a client an awesome 300 d sedan and two Pagoda SLs I was representing for clients at the time, all for sale. I was a little suspicious of the email, due to its formatting (that doesn't come across as I've pasted it above), as some of the lines were bold, a couple of different font sizes were used, AND... the biggest thing, the first line is an apology, not unlike those scams spam emails we all get about how some Prince in Nigeria is in jail, and needs your help to liberate the millions of dollars the bad guys are holding or whatever.
The photos of the cars I sent him we all real, real cars, to be sold... available that day. Any real buyer or seller of such cars would have emailed right back.
4 days later, I received a reply from "Paul Klein - paul.klein1969 at gmail.com"
Hello Dave,
Thanks so much for your email and sorry for my late answer.
I'm very interested on the 1959 300D, please tell me more about it and send me some additional pictures including the interior.
What is the asking price?
Sincerely,
Paul
No real red flags here, although 'sorry for my late answer' isn't quite right. But again, no harm, I work with a lot of non native English speakers, Europeans, who might very well write something like that... but you'd expect a guy named 'Paul Klein' to, probably, be a native English speaker.
I replied to him right away... thinking maybe I had a buyer for for the 300 d.
Here is the first paragraph of my reply, I went on to provide my phone number in the email:
Hi Paul,
Let’s talk on the phone... I’d like to know who you are, where you are, etc. before going any further. I took 400 photos of the car a couple weeks ago.. I’ll be going through them, culling some.. and putting together a big photo album on my flickr page soon.
I'm calling him out in that first line.. basically saying... "Hey, you're a car guy, I'm car guy, let's talk about these cars..." any real car guy, especially a buyer, will want to talk to the seller... that's what's fun, it's how we meet new people, learn about the cars. Not in this case.
After that email... I never heard anything from him, and figured it was a scam. I went on to sell both Pagodas to SL Market Letter subscribers that week, one in Virginia, the other in San Francisco. Guys I was able to talk to, real people.
I'm not sure how he would have scammed me... but there are any number of ways to scam buyers and sellers alike, although, we usually expect to be scammed as buyers, because we're the ones sending money. He may have worked the 'I pay for shipping in advance' angle... or he'd send too much money to me and then ask me to send some portion back only to later find out the cashier's check he sent was fraudulent, etc. etc.
I didn't expend anymore brain power on the subject... until this morning, when the email below was forwarded to me, by another good buddy of mine from our local Mercedes-Benz Club.
Look familiar?
The kicker is... this time it came from a different person and the person they reference in the body is different:
Sent by: mbz190slcollector at yahoo.com - Robert Barret
Apparent 'referrer': mikejahn1976 at gmail.com - Mike Jahn
Hello,
I apologize for my email. Mike Jahn (here in copy of this email) referred me to you.
I'm looking to buy an early 50's to 60's Mercedes 190 SL or Pagoda.
I'm also interested on a Adenauer 300 or Ponton.
I'm familiar with the restoration, i'll consider any condition.
Please let me know if you can help. Any advice will be appreciated.
I'm very serious and will not waste your time.
Thanks in advance,
Bob
So, no doubt, a scam. So beware, if you see this email. Don't waste your time.
The fact that the three people who originally received the email are all active Mercedes-Benz club members, all have been board members, two are past presidents, lead me to believe that the scammers were harvesting email addresses from our local MB club newsletters, posted to our local MB club website. That's the only place I can think all three of these guys have their emails addresses listed. They're all respected MB club members, so maybe the scammers thought they were good marks.
