So here’s the way the research went, over the course of a few slightly tense hours, before I committed to buy the car.
Is DS real?
Web search showed that DS (the seller of the car) is a long-term old-car afficionado, with ownership of old Alfa Romeo and Mercedes featuring, as well as some journalistic work around Pegaso history and obscure coachbuilders of the ’50s and ’60s.
So far so good.
Is the seller DS?
From further playing with key phrases in search, it was clear the DS (the real one) was involved in a family manufacturing business. The email address I’d been corresponding with was the correct one for this business.
With the assistance of Google’s language tools (my Spanish is minimal), I tracked DS’s company’s results, and his registration in business directories in Spain as a part-time car dealer. His bank and address details tallied with the bank details (IBAN etc.) that I had been sent.
Does it smell OK? Pong? Whiff??
A bit more intangible this… In my experience of business transactions, where trust is concerned you’ve got to learn to pay proper attention to gut instinct. When things don’t go right, hindsight will almost always tell you that you KNEW the deal was going to go sour. Hindsight is 20:20? Yes, maybe, but it’s sadly true that a contract won’t necessarily help if someone’s out to scam you: safety lies elsewhere.
Every communication I had with DS was good; it felt right, without false notes being struck, or alarm bells rung.
When I asked myself whether my desire for the car, the deal, was clouding my judgement, the answer was; no, I don’t think so.
So, all things considered, and with some trepidation still in my mind, I agreed to buy the car, and transferred the money to DS’s bank account hours before leaving for my summer vacation.
At what point did the worries disperse? A couple of turning points: the final one was when pictures of the car being loaded on the the transporter were emailed to me, and the first occurred a couple of days after I’d spotted and agreed to buy the car, when this post appeared on the UK Lancia Motor Club forum:
Apparently the Spanish Aurelia 4th series that was for sale for EUR9,000 on classiccarsforsale.co.uk is on its way to Surrey. If its headed to an LMC member, many congratulations and I hope that we see the restoration progress on here. Even without an engine that has to be a bit of a bargain!
Sending away potential buyers is not the behaviour of a scammer.
B20-2959 