When Karen listed her seven year old Ford Focus on carsguide.com.au, part of the prominent News network devoted to buying and selling cars, she hoped for interested buyers. Instead, all she got was the tired old overpayment scam.

Karen listed her car for sale. A used 2003 Ford Focus, new stereo, about 94,000kms.

Now, Karen thought maybe she would get no interested buyers. Or, she might get a few bites but price and negotiations may not work out. Either way that's life, that's business.

What she didn't expect was to receive not one, not two but no less than seven responses in the first two days that read almost exactly alike:

Hello Mate,

I just want to know if you have the service history and log book for the car.. cos i have gone through it on the website and it suit my taste... i really want to get the car so i will accept your offer. i am buying the car as a birthday gift for wife. I am on sea at the moment as i am a marine engineer and due to the nature of my work,phone calls making and visiting of website are restricted but i squeezed out time to check this advert and send you an email regarding it. I really want the car to be a surprise for my wife so i wont let her know anything about the car until it gets delivered to her , i am sure she will be more than happy with the car...I will be paying with PayPal because i don't have access to my bank account online as i don't have internet banking, but i can pay from my PayPal account, as i have my bank account attached to it, i will need you to give me your PayPal email address so i can make the payments asap for the car and please if you don't have PayPal account yet, it is very easy to set up, go to WWW.PayPal.com and get it set up, after you have set it up i will only need the e-mail address you use for registration with PayPal so as to put the money through.Don't worry about the pick up,my shipping agent will be coming to pick it up, I'll like you to send me your address so that my shipping agent can figure it out and come for the pick up and other necessary things. For the test drive my agent will be in charge when he comes for the pickup. .....And how much is your final price for the car?...

Awaits your response..

Stephen

The responses varied names and reasons for not coming in person but all had several features in common.

First, the so-called buyers were always happy to buy the vehicle sight-unseen and without attending in person.

Second, they all insisted on making payment via PayPal. Initially Karen had listed PayPal as a payment option (along with bank cheque, cash and so forth) but removed this after the first batch of responses. It didn't make any change in the responses received.

What we have here is a classic case of the 'cheque overpayment scam' which is detailed on the Australian Government's Scamwatch web site.

In essence, this scam is played on those selling items over the Internet or through classifieds.

The scammer will make an offer, usually quite a generous offer, and makes payment for more money than the agreed price.

The seller is urged to make a refund - and fast enough, the scammer hopes, that they don't realise the initial payment actually bounces or is rejected.

The scammer may not genuinely be interested in the item being sold but if it is something small and which can be posted then the seller loses that as well as cash.

If you receive such e-mails yourself, you are urged to report these to the appropriate Government body. While it is easy to delete scam e-mails unless they are reported the perpetrators will continue to be free to try their hand at such tactics.

Disappointingly, these were the only responses Karen received, making her question just who CarsGuide is marketing to.

iTWire asked Annie Petersson from News Digital Media whether CarsGuide were concerned about their site being used by scammers, whether they had any protections and controls in place or planned to do so, and if they knew how many of their sellers are targeted in this way.

Annie told iTWire "Carsguide's website is no more, or less, affected by scams than any other motoring site.

'Carsguide takes scams extremely seriously. We have extensive advice on the site detailing the different types of scams, including the latest versions, and how to avoid them.

'Examples of our advice can be found here and here.

'We provide links to The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's website and the government's ScamWatch site. We also ask any readers that are suspicious of an advertisement or offer to contact us.'



