A perspective buyer can even run all of the necessary checks and, of course, the car will come up clean. Upon "winning" the bid, the seller asks for cash on collection, instead of an eBay secure payment. Thinking everything is all good, the buyer complies and ends up with a stolen vehicle. A recently retired policeman even fell for the scam, believing he bought a £17,000 Mercedes through one of these eBay scams, only to discover after taking delivery that the car's details had been altered. The car was returned to its original owner and he was out £17,000. Same thing happened to another guy, thinking he bought an £18,300 BMW.