n/a - HPS Enterprises

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 11:02
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Adele Tayles

Has anyone bought a car from hps enterprises?

They do seem legitimate but would like a bit more concrete evidence that it's not a scam. Afterall, we are about to send money to a company we don't know for a car we haven't seen (you can't be too careful these days).

It seems that their head office is in the UK but they operate mainly in Europe. However, their accounts filed at Companies House are very low which doesn't make sense bearing in mind the amount of cars they sell.

Comments/advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 13:20
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Avant

Most of us on here would strongly advise you against sending ANYONE cash for a car you haven't seen. Buy locally: much less hassle if anything goes wrong.

The UK company accounts may well be just the holding company, with a separate subsidiary somewhere else. But - as with overtaking - if in doubt, don't.

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 14:37
n/a - HPS Enterprises - TheGentlemanThug

Most of us on here would strongly advise you against sending ANYONE cash for a car you haven't seen. Buy locally: much less hassle if anything goes wrong.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Regardless of how much they harp on about their 5 day no-quibble return policy, you're handing over thousands of pounds (or Euros, as that's how they price their vehicles, which is questionable in itself) for a car you haven't seen, inspected or test driven.

Don't. Just don't.

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 19:00
n/a - HPS Enterprises - barney100

I would back off if in any doubt.

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 13:40
n/a - HPS Enterprises - FP

"...we are about to send money to a company we don't know for a car we haven't seen..."

Really? And presumably, quite a lot of money - it's not like ordering a few bits and bobs from an unknown seller on Amazon, is it?

I now begin to understand why there are so many scams around these days. It's because some people are so trusting.

If you have got as far as being "about to send money" then I think you're being incredibly naive.

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 13:52
n/a - HPS Enterprises - daveyjp

Spam

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 14:50
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Avant

I don't think it is: there was no link fo me to remove!

I Googled HPS Enterprises, and their website says:

"We specialise in dealing with fleet and repossessed vehicles. These vehicles have been seized from owners that couldn’t afford to pay the lease or some financial debts. However the finance have been settled before putting the vehicles on sale."

It doesn't take much imagination to guess how careful the previous users have been.

Edited by Avant on 18/10/2018 at 14:51

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 15:42
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Adele Tayles

Of course, we're NOT sending any money until we are 100% certain.

I am surprised that when you google them there aren't any "Scam" details.

But needless to say, we are not that naive to send money.

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 15:42
n/a - HPS Enterprises - SLO76
Never buy a car unseen, even something nearly new. This lot specialise in repossessions which from my experience are usually tatty and neglected with little or no history thanks to lack of funds. This is not something you want to buy without clapping eyes on it.
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Thu 18 Oct 2018 16:19
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Brit_in_Germany

The HPS site looks very similar to the inter dealer auctions site referred to in the recently revived ORB thread about donating an old car. This was also the subject of a now deleted thread which included a link to a "hnjohn.uk" spoof link. If you look that link up on the wayback machine is does refer to "honest john" images so clearly they were trying to pass themselves off as the real thing. I would run a mile from this company and I strongly suspect the post was intended to attract custom to this "company".

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 16:47
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Adele Tayles

Thanks everyone.

I wonder why the internet isn't full of reports of them being a scam?

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 17:01
n/a - HPS Enterprises - FP

"I wonder why the internet isn't full of reports of them being a scam?"

No-one's actually saying they are, but it does sound as if you don't want to believe it.

The point is, you cannot establish for certain what this company is. It is the doubt that is the killer. It is simply not a good idea to be trusting when you haven't a clue about the people you're dealing with.

And then there's the other thing - buying a car unseen. That is a pretty silly idea in itself.

You were about to send money. Please don't.

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 17:09
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Adele Tayles

Indeed there are a lot of things that don't make sense about this company.

There's no way I'll be sending money to them.

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 17:24
n/a - HPS Enterprises - TheGentlemanThug

To be fair, they might not be. They just seem very questionable, which isn't good considering what you're buying.

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 17:28
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Adele Tayles

True.

I'm working on the basis that if it seems too good to be true then it probably is.

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 18:43
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Adele Tayles

Update:

HPS Enterprises sent us many links, one of which was this:

thcarexpert.co.uk/category/forums/topic/Buying_a_c...s

However, we contacted "the carexpert.co.uk" who said this:

"it’s a complete fake and they are impersonating our site. Unfortunately the fake site is not based in the UK and there’s very little we can do to stop it. I have no idea if HPS is a legitimate business, but given that their means of marketing is very deliberately deceptive, you should probably avoid them at all costs."

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 20:06
n/a - HPS Enterprises - TheGentlemanThug

Well, that's that then.

The fact that HPS sent you to a forum on a third-party website in an attempt to appear legitimate is just laughable.

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 20:40
n/a - HPS Enterprises - leaseman

To put it all in context.

I have been in the UK Car Financing business since 1972. Yes, 46 years. Initially HP based transactions moving to Contract Hire and Leasing in later years to date.

I have repossessed more cars in that time than I could count.

Never in those years have I repossessed a car that has been carefully looked after. Ever.

Every Repossession is sold into the trade at a fair "Trade Value" price or is auctioned. There is no "Grey Market" for repossessed vehicles.

This is a SCAM. And that's a full stop!

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Thu 18 Oct 2018 21:30
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Brit_in_Germany

The whois details for thcarexpert.co.uk and hnjohn.uk look remarkably similar. Is it a coincidence that both have been included in posts on hj's forum?

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Fri 19 Oct 2018 06:58
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Adele Tayles

Hmmm, if you notice, there's an "e" missing from "thcarexpert", and the honest john one is spelk "hnjohn". It's very easy to miss and are made to look the same. There are some more forums too which have been messed with. It seems the scamster is very good with computers.'

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Fri 19 Oct 2018 09:48
n/a - HPS Enterprises - stuartmasson

Hi all. I'm stuart, editor at The Car Expert.

This is the third or fourth attempt by what appears to be the same crowd trying to impersonate our site in the last year, who are probably the same ones trying to impersonate the Honest John site - and probably many others as well.

We try to shut these guys down as soon as they pop up, but it is rather difficult. In this case, it's impersonating our site as well as me personally to try and generate authentic-sounding endorsement for the business – in this case, HPS Enterprises. They have copied the code for our (now outdated) site design, so many of the links on the page do point to other pages on our site, which helps it seem legitimate.

It could possibly be a shoddy marketing agency acting without the client's explicit knowledge, but this has happened a few times and is always linked to similar companies importing cars to the UK from Europe so I assume there's a connected network at play.

We have sent cease-and-desist letters to HPS Enterprises and to the site hosts – I don't expect to hear back from HPS but hopefully the web hosts (eUKhost) will take action and remove the site fairly quickly. Unfortunately it will probably pop up again somewhere else in a while.

The original poster in this thread did contact us late yesterday to ask about it, which is how this latest scam came to our attention. If you see anything like this where a site is being impersonated, please contact the legitimate site owner so we/they are made aware of the fake site and can try to get it shut down.

Thanks, have a good weekend.

Edited by stuartmasson on 19/10/2018 at 10:37

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Fri 19 Oct 2018 11:07
n/a - HPS Enterprises - TheGentlemanThug

Hi Stuart

Thanks for that post; insightful and not too surprising really.

I work in IT and understand how quickly these sorts of sites can crop up, no doubt due to the ease at which content can be copied and the availability of free domain hosting. I've seen entire sites screen-shotted, carved up, hyperlinks added and everything put back together. It's shoddy, but not everyone will notice.

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Fri 19 Oct 2018 22:25
n/a - HPS Enterprises - Avant

Thank you Stuart for taking the trouble to reply in detail.

Thanks too to Adele for bringing it to our attention. Unfortunately these sharks rely on people falling for a tempting offer and - unlike you - not having the common sense at least to query it.

I'm the moderator on here and I'll keep a look out for such things.

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