Also dont forget the dealer probably serviced it and has to, by law, warranty it for 6 months. You dont know he sold it for 16k. I would have thought 10% off asking price was more likely.

Many thanks for all your contributions.

Just heard another story about a car advertised on Autaotrader that did not exist .

The photo was of another car so the HPI lined up ok. £5k was transferred into a google account and when he turned up to pick the car up no one was there . No redress from all involved.

Moral of the story buy from a dealer !

Morals of the story :

Only buy a car that you have physically seen and had a chance to inspect. Including the VIN, V5 document, all paperwork, and run a complete HPI on.

Only make bank transfers to a UK bank account that a person has had to verify their identity for.

Making transfers to a google account, Western Union, etc. is pretty dumb, and asking to be scammed. Couple that with a car that you haven't actually seen, and the person pretty much deserves to be ripped off. The flaws and risks are well known.

I'll make a small bet here : The car was ridiculously cheap, and the vendor was abroad, or had lost their licence, a desperate seller, etc. So it all appealed to the buyer's greed.

Many years ago I owned a Volvo 850 T5-R which I had for sale, through a magazine advert (1997 I think, so the internet didn't really exist). A man flew down from Peterhead to see it, I picked him up in Manchester. We drove back to mine, where he examined all the paperwork, was happy with it all.

We then went to Midland bank (yes, it was that long ago!), where he had arranged to be able to draw out the money to pay for it down at my local branch. So the money came out from the cashier and was handed directly to me, and I paid it straight into my account through the same cashier.

A friend bought a Range Rover the same way about 5 years ago. Arranged with Nationwide that he could draw out £12,000 at a particular branch, on a particular day. Went to see the car, did the HPI, etc, went with the vendor to the branch after agreeing the price. The money was drawn out and the vendor went down the road to their bank and paid £10k of it straight in. Again, no risk at all.