I had a similar situation with an online want ads just before Christmas.
Caution flags rose when I saw a small, ten year old Kubota diesel tractor with ultra low hours for a low price, $1,800. Nevada phone number. Photos were obvious that they weren’t taken locally. Tractor too new, shiny and cheap. But … I wanted it. So I cautiously bit. Called number. Went to voicemail.
While waiting, I did some research. Prices online at various farm equipment websites showed prices averaging $7,500 and up. I checked his photos for EXIF data to see when they were taken. Photos were stripped of EXIF data. I checked for duplicate images online just in case he was simply copying and pasting online images into his email (similar to the recent Uber “vomit scam). Caution flags were beginning to turn red.
Three days later I received a text from somebody named “Amy.” “She” was texting in behalf of her “father” who owned the tractor. Amy asked that I email her father at a Gmail address. So I did. The father wrote back with about a dozen photos. And oh, did they mention that they lived in Kansas City? No the ad said that they lived and had a phone number where I do, almost 1,500 miles away.
A bit of back and forth. The father offered to bring me the tractor for an additional $200 and allow me to operate it for three days. Wow, he’s so kind - a 3/4 ton (preferably a 1-ton) pickup driving 1,500 miles over the Rockies and Wasatch ranges should use far more than $200 in fuel. Oh, and did he mention that I need to open an account at an online banking site and deposit the full price?
Big time red flags. But I decided to play with him a bit. I knew in my mind that it was a scam. But maybe he was a secret Santa that had a garage full of barely used adult boy toys that he was selling cheap. Logic told me early on that if legit, he would have sold it in an instant in or near Kansas City. But I played along, asking questions like I was interested.
I told a friend of mine about it, he said that such ads are on online classified all the time. I could sense in the guy’s emails that he was getting impatient with me. In short, I suddenly and tersely declined his offer short and sweet. Since then, the guy has been offering all sorts of 5-10 year old high end tractors, ATVs, UTVs and such for … $1,8000. All with the same “local” number.
