Car-buying scam returns to Wairarapa

A car-buying scam that first surfaced in Wairarapa last July is doing the rounds again.
About two weeks ago Quinne and Jacqui Lockyer, of Masterton, put their 1984 Rover on the Trade and Exchange website, offering to sell it for $1500.
Mrs Lockyer said they started getting emails from a person called Ola Moore, who lived in Britain.
"She told us she wanted to buy the car and that a competent shipping company would pick it up."
Later when speaking to a man at the same address, Mrs Lockyer said he didn't answer questions they put to him but "proceeded to tell us what to do in broken English, and kept saying okay all the time".
They later discovered a friend who had a Ford Laser for sale had received emails from a Lee Moore, from Britain, giving an identical story.
Being suspicious, he had quickly got out of the deal, telling them the car was already sold.
Mrs Lockyer said their so-called buyer had asked, by email, who the certified cheque should be made out to so they could clinch the sale and had then written a cheque out for ?4000.
"We asked him why he had written it out for that amount when we were only asking $1500 in New Zealand currency.
"We then asked him to immediately cancel the cheque, telling him we had sold the car and that we thought it was all a scam.
"He was told if he made contact again we would refer the matter to the police."
But the man persisted, saying he could not cancel the cheque and that the Lockyers' had to let him know when they received the cheque so he could contact the shipping company who would pick up the car and the change from the ?4000.
"He went ahead talking as though he was buying the car and he sent the cheque despite us telling him the car was no longer available."
Mrs Lockyer said the cheque arrived in the mail without a return address and was a personal cheque, not a certified one.
"We took it straight to the police as we had told him we would do."
She said the car has since been sold to a bona fide buyer.
Mrs Lockyer said when they phoned Trade and Exchange they had been told they were one of hundreds who had phoned in about the same thing happening to them.
In July last year Graham Thomas, of Central Vehicle Brokers in Masterton, had the same scam pulled on him but the perpetrator was supposedly from the United States.
His research at that time showed the scam revolved round sending valueless cheques made out for much more than the value of cars for sale and a follow-up request for the excess funds to be sent to "someone identified as a shipping agent".
Bank clearance times meant it was at a later date the forgery was uncovered and the account-holder is deemed responsible for the released funds.
There is a suspicion the scam is not British or American-based but is run out of Nigeria.