Scam adverts, what can they gain

[R400]

You know when sometimes you see adverts on social media and eBay for boats, tractors, equipment etc. which are so reasonable you have a look. Quite clearly they aren’t genuine though you may get replies by the internet or even sometimes a phone call. There used to be a scam on eBay when they swamped the power boat listings with adverts such as buy now prices clearly 50% lower than normal. It happened 3 times to my knowledge.
What I don’t get is what they can achieve by doing this, or am I being a bit dense?

 

[Stingo]

They'll probably reply to your enquiry along the lines of "Send your holding deposit to *********@paypal.com to secure your purchase before the other 100 enquiries beat you to it".
You send your hard-earned and surprise, surprise, they're gone, never to be seen or heard from again.

 

[julians]

My father in law got suckered by a scam ad for a tractor, he paid a £1500 deposit for a tractor that wasn't real,he lost the deposit. It's pretty much as stingo above says.

We did warn him that we thought it was a scam as it looked too good to be true,but he's a complete sucker for a good deal.

This scam wasn't even on the internet,this was an ad in some farming mag.

 

[R400]

Yes that rings true. There is a website, SD Machinery , whose prices are so cheap they’re ludicrous. The phone didn’t answer all day until evening by a chap with an unidentifiable accent who told me all their stock advertised was available ie Ifor Williams trailer almost new 2.5k, about a 6 to 7 grand unit.
Out of curiosity i looked them up on Google earth , their address seems to be a scrap yard.
Sadly your father in law discovered the answer to my question.

 

[julians]

Yes that rings true. There is a website, SD Machinery , whose prices are so cheap they’re ludicrous. The phone didn’t answer all day until evening by a chap with an unidentifiable accent who told me all their stock advertised was available ie Ifor Williams trailer almost new 2.5k, about a 6 to 7 grand unit.
Out of curiosity i looked them up on Google earth , their address seems to be a scrap yard.
Sadly your father in law discovered the answer to my question.

My father in law's scam was about 10 years ago, he was quite embarrassed about being caught by it. We reported it to the police, they ended up successfully prosecuting someone for it,but the money was long gone.

The police said the scammers had successfully conned a lot of people before they were caught for it.

If it looks too good to be true it probably is, and it definitely is if you get pressured to send a deposit and they come up with all sorts of stories as to why you can't view the goods before handing over a deposit.

It's unfortunately just the world we live in now that you have to be so on your guard all the time.

My father in law is of a different era when a man's word was his bond-although I'm sure even then there were scammers about

 

[markspark7]

A lot of the "Fake " listings on Ebay, Apolloduck etc are usually after your name , address, contact number and email, all of which are used in phishing scams, the ones asking for actual money seem to be fading away although some exists.
Seen people , list 100+ cars, boats, bikes etc with no contact details other than the standard Ebay contact form that requires you to divulge all of your personnel details just to ask to view the listed item.