Lancashire business woman’s warning over car sales scam running on eBay now

A Lancashire businesswoman has warned people looking to buy cars are being scammed, after she was inundated with phone calls.
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Paula Ardron-Gemmell from Kirkham based Pink Tree Parties issued the warning after her business’ identity was fraudulently used on eBay to “sell vehicles”.

She said the con-man was listing Audi vehicles for sale and asking customers to pay a £1,500 deposit to reserve the vehicle, then when customers called him, he pretended to be her father to use the good name of the party balloons business to reassure people, before he tricks them out of their money.

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She said: “We first heard about this last Friday when we were on holiday in Cyprus. I got a random text from someone asking me to call them back. It turned out it was a fellow balloon decorator who follows our company and she was keen to buy thinking it was our car we were selling.

Paula Ardron-Gemmell and her Pink Tree Parties business partner Amanda Tucker-Lee, with balloons at the Grand Theatre BlackpoolPaula Ardron-Gemmell and her Pink Tree Parties business partner Amanda Tucker-Lee, with balloons at the Grand Theatre Blackpool
Paula Ardron-Gemmell and her Pink Tree Parties business partner Amanda Tucker-Lee, with balloons at the Grand Theatre Blackpool
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"She opened our eyes to it she had rung the man in question who was claiming to be my father. He told her that his daughter was on holiday, she owns Pink Tree and not back until Monday but he was selling the car for her while she was away.

"He is trying to reassure buyers that they can trust him because I have a well established high street shop, we have been in business 15 years, and they can easily validate this on companies house as we're a limited company.”

Luckily the potential customer noted that the bank details he gave for the deposit were in another woman’s name and queried it.

Paula Ardron-Gemmell says this eBay listing is a scam using her business' good name to reassure victims that the car sale is realPaula Ardron-Gemmell says this eBay listing is a scam using her business' good name to reassure victims that the car sale is real
Paula Ardron-Gemmell says this eBay listing is a scam using her business' good name to reassure victims that the car sale is real
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"He obviously has gathered some information about us. The girls in the shop had a couple of phone calls about this before we got back. The address on the log book of the car is for a Kirkham address.

"When we got back, we got so many calls on the mobile about the cars. As soon as that eBay listing for the Audi car ended, he put on another for an Audi van.

"I told one woman on the phone ‘please don’t send him any money it is a scam’, but she said she already had done a bank transfer. We have had about 40 calls and text messages. Many of those will have given him £1,500.

"We know he is getting cash from this, it is a really easy scam.”

Paula said she has reported the issue to eBay and to Action Fraud but wanted to warn everyone about this new form of scam.

She said the seller keeps changing his seller name, bank account details, wife’s name and telephone numbers, to try to avoid detection.

eBay is yet to reply to reporters’ queries about this issue.