Thought it might be worth posting this on here too

If your looking at buying private it's worth reading

http://www.disco3.co.uk/forum/topic56440.html?highlight=

A terrible story from the D3 site, really feel for the guy. Just be warned as would hate to hear it happen over here. Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

Poor guy, I don't understand how these people sleep at night Mine: 2012 Golf GTI Edition 35
Family's: 2009 Freelander 2 HSE TD4 Auto, Stornoway

Yorkshire - God's County

Just wanted to echo what had been posted on the Disco 3 site;

Recently replied to an advert on Autotrader for a Freelander XS - Very well priced and for sale with a garage in North Yorkshire. Advert had a picture of the vehicle but no registration plate on.
Vehicle was part of a Company Reposession and was being sold by the official reciever. Was on my guard after reading the above link, but met the salesman and agreed to buy the vehicle - subject to inspection. My suspicions were raised when the advert was pulled a couple of days after I saw it, and more delays were encountered due to problems with the vehicle being released by the finance company and also a private plate being taken off.
2 weeks after the initial approach - I was given the new registration number, followed by a HPI check sent in the post by the dealership.
All seemed well - but the vehicle still hadnt been released.

After reading a couple of posts on here and the Disco site, I trawled through loads of adverts on the internet just in case the vehicle was being sold elsewhere - nothing.
Just on the off chance, I put the registration number I had been given into my search engine and low and behold - the vehicle came up for sale on a main dealers website in the south of England. I spoke to the dealership and authough they couldnt tell me too much, they confirmed that the vehicle had been in their dealership 3 weeks ago - but had now been sold.
Intrigued by what was now going on, spoke to the Police who were not interested in the slightest in what was possibly happening, my concern being that somebody was trying to sell a cloned vehicle.

In the end after telling the dealership that I would be having a full inspection of the vehicle, and be paying with a bankers draft rather than cash - they backed right off and the car was never produced.

As I kept copies of the advert, e-mails, telephone numbers, addresses, texts and letters, these have now all been forwarded to North Yorkshire Trading Standards.

As somebody said before - if something appears too good to be true - it probably is!

Please be very careful even if buying through an independant dealer - get everything checked out before parting with any cash.

I was lucky but this could have turned out into a complete disaster for me and my family.

Now, has anybody got a nice 2007 XS they want to sell me......

I'm glad the misfortune of another (that doesn't sound very nice )and the thread has planted that seed of doubt and lead to further checks and what looks to be a lucky escape

I can see however that the plate would have been removed and sold seperatly by the officail receiver as a car with a private plate will not fetch anymore, so thats why they put back to standard and sell the plate on its own.

I also thought, from my days been a bailiff the Official Receiver put stuff through auction, as it could be said that they under sold the items, or they do it by sealed bids. Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

Scumbag rogue traders (i.e fraudsters) and the proprietors of such business need the full weight of the law enforced upon them. Closure and imprisonment - not petty fines.

The law exists to do so - it is shameful that the law enforcement agencies (trading standards, police and the judiciary) all too often take a softly softly approach or none at all to this blight. And the problem can only get worse as central government resources are now being scaled back dramatically. Caveat: buyer beware has never been so relevant.