- July 14, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
BBB Serving Northern Colorado and Wyoming has received numerous inquiries and reports from consumers around the country regarding vehicle shipping and escrow fraud — a type of scam that has become alarmingly common in today’s marketplace.
Consumers report finding a used vehicle listed for sale on an online platform such as Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. The ad includes alluring pictures and an enticing price. Once they’ve established contact, the seller offers to arrange for a third party to hold the purchase money in escrow and then ship the vehicle to the consumer. They agree to terms and the buyer wires money to the escrow company as instructed. Then the long wait begins for the buyer — and the realization that they’ve been duped.
The entire scheme is a fraud. The vehicle does not exist, the seller is a scammer, the escrow company is fake, and the buyer will likely never get his or her money back.
While this is certainly not a new…
