Autotrader scam

Last summer i was scammed whilst trying to sell my car. Like everyone else here it made me very angry and upset with the whole situation. The police are useless and made me feel even worse about myself. I lost £3,500 during my final year of study and I will only have paid the bank back by november of this year. I was so embarrassed that it took me over 6 months to tell my mum and my dad still doesn't know. I want to encourage everyone that they are not alone and not to be embarrased! People who say that us victims are stupid for believing are thoughtless and have clearly never been in out situation!!
I know there is a growing awareness of 419 scams and this is a good thing but why is there no government help? surely they should realise by now that this is a serious issue. Also how are banks allowed to let cheques clear before they have actually cleared?! that is how i lost my money. I just assumed, stupidly, that because i could get the money out that all was ok. I was devastated when the bank sent the cheque back and told me I had to repay them that money!!!

Hi Red Victoria

Welcome to Scamwarners.

I am sorry to hear you were a victim of scammers, as you correctly pointed out, you are not alone.

Scam victims are often tagged as greedy and / or stupid, you and I as well as most of the members of this site are in full agreeance that is not the case, there are so many cariations of scams out there that there is one to suit everybody.

Part of the reason these scams are so successful is the embarrassment scam victims feel and their reluctance to tell others. Many people do not report being scammed to the police for teh same reason and even if they did reportt it the police are unlikely to do more than give you their sympathy if you are lucky.

It is this attitude that prevents governments from getting a true picture of how big a problem it really is which in turn reduces the amount of funding set aside for prevention of these internet based crimes.

As to the way cheques go through the banking system, that is why the scam work for scammers, they bank on the cheques passing through "provisional" clearance.

It is a common misconception that after waiting 5 days for cheques to clear that the cheque is good, of course that is not the case, it may take many months for a bank to determine a cheque is good.

Thank you for posting, if you would like to include the scammers details you may be able to prevent somebody else from being scammed

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask