“A nice limousine, with a full service history, only a few kilometers on the clock and a super good price, but I made a mistake on the internet!”
With this good feeling, car buyers often leave Bochum or Herne behind and drive back to their often distant hometowns with the “dream car” they have just purchased.
The rude awakening often comes very quickly. The vehicle documents and the service book are forged, the mileage is manipulated and the purchase price is significantly inflated. With a bad feeling, these people then get into the “nightmare car”, drive it to the local police station and report the goods fraud.
A little later, the difficult investigation begins at the Bochum Specialist Commissariat for Fraud Crimes (KK 15) - as has happened almost 150 times in the past two years - to find the criminal sellers of these cars.
And they “work” very ripped off and with great acting talent.
The photos with which the vehicles are offered in the relevant well-known portals were usually taken in well-kept residential areas. It is not uncommon for the polished car to be parked in the garage entrance of a single-family home with addresses, for example in the Recklinghausen district or in smaller towns in Münsterland.
Under a legend (relative is in the hospital in Herne, I'm at a family celebration in Bochum, etc.) interested parties are lured to our area - usually to anonymous parking lots in high-rise housing estates or, most recently, to the main train station in Bochum. Extreme caution is required now at the latest!
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The owner is always already entered as the seller in the purchase contracts, along with an address that is close to the place of sale. However, this address usually differs from the one in the registration certificate.
If the sellers, who often come from Poland or Romania, willingly have their ID cards photographed, caution is always advised, as they are either on record as being lost or belong to bill holders.
Sometimes customers are forced to take photos of their ID cards in order to create credibility.
You should be particularly careful if additions are included in the purchase contract such as: right of return within 14 days, missing keys or summer/winter tires will be sent later “by post”.
Caution is also advised if the tires can be picked up in a neighboring city. This only serves to distract the seller's mind and allow him to disappear from the point of sale without being recognized.
Service books are always handed over with the vehicles. The stamps of the inspecting companies usually do not match the place of residence of the holders. Basically, you should use your cell phone to check whether the car dealership actually exists at the address given. Daimler Benz, for example, has stopped issuing service manuals since 2008.
In the case of registration certificates Part II (vehicle registration document), the number of owners and the year of first registration are often falsified. In order to remove the original entry, criminal car salesmen often roughen the document with a sharp blade in order to make new entries. The change is often visible to the naked eye.
When test reports are handed out for the main inspection, please also pay attention to the typeface of the chassis numbers, as these usually differ clearly from the other typeface in the case of counterfeits.
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Our appeal: “Heed our warnings and don’t let the fraudsters ‘rip you off’ when taking over your vehicle so that your dream car doesn’t turn into a nightmare car!”
Source and article image: Bochum Police
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