Buying a Van: We Got Scammed
At the beginning of 2022 we got scammed out of £2000 when trying to purchase a van. We had decided to go on the search of a van to convert into a camper after wanting to do van life for a while.
Here’s our story, we hope it can help others spot the signs of a scam when purchasing a van and not fall into the same trap we did. We were excited and naive and it can be a very exciting time but it is important to be careful and cautious.
Searching for the right van
In January 2022 we set out to buy a van to convert into a tiny home on wheels. We had spent much of 2021 watching van conversion videos, learning about the process and researching the type of van we wanted; what make, year, size etc, and had set our hopes on a long-wheelbase (LWB) Mercedes Sprinter. We ideally were looking for a 2004-2010 Sprinter, due to our budget and the reviews we had read on their reliability.
After searching eBay, Autotrader and other vehicle sales sites we found a 2007 LWB Sprinter at a very good price with low mileage, it was too good to be true (quite literally). On the listing it said to call or email the buyer for more information, so that is exactly what we did.
Introducing Stanley - The Money Stealing Psychopath
We rang the number and spoke to a man named Stanley, and we thought we’d made a friend (silly us), he told us how he had owned a van for several years just to help him out on handy jobs as he was a retired electrician, but since he retired he said he wasn’t using it much so wanted to sell it to someone who would get better use out of it. He explained how he didn’t want much for it, he just wanted it to be off his drive so was happy for it to go to anyone who was eager to have it (the first red flag).
After a lovely chat on the phone with Stanley, we talked among ourselves, did a bit of digging on the van, looking up its previous MOT history as well as a full vehicle history check with the RAC, which we paid for! We did our research, well everything we could possibly think about doing, as we wanted to make sure this van was all good before committing to it.
After receiving the RAC documents and seeing everything looked good and that the history was as specified on the listing and that the mileage was the same, we decided to ring Stanley and tell him we were interested in the van. Only thing was, we lived in the Midlands and Stanley supposedly lived in Exeter… We rang Stanley back and told him we were interested in the van and asked if we could come down to see it and take it for a test drive, which he agreed to, and due to it being such a long journey down we asked if we’d be able to buy it there and then and bring it back with us if we were happy with it on the day.
The Scam
Now, this is where it gets dodgy, but excited and naive us couldn’t see it. Stanley asked for a deposit of £2000 (I know, a lot right? We were such idiots). He explained that he needed a deposit to secure the van for us as he had someone else coming to see it the next day and they were very interested. Now as we couldn’t come down for another few days and we really wanted this van, it was a good price, history was immaculate, the millage was low and in all honesty, we just wanted to get on with van life already. So as you could’ve guessed it, we sent over the money. Now if there weren’t enough red flags already, we really should’ve known at this point, the bank details Stanley gave us to send the money to belonged to a lady, however, they did share the same supposed last name, and he told us we would be sending the money to his wife and not him as this poor retired old man didn’t understand online banking that well so his wife dealt with it, and silly us, we believed him and sent the money anyways. I know exactly what you’re thinking, “why the hell did you send money before seeing the van?!?!” and all we can say is that we were naive, excited and genuinely believed this sweet old man on the phone, but not everyone is how they seem and we were clearly too trusting.
So Stanley took our contact details and sent us an email ‘receipt’ along with his address, we honestly thought we were all good, we were set to go buy a van! We booked our train tickets down to Exeter and off we went.
Except when the day came around we both felt on edge, there was an awkward tension in the air like we both felt something was wrong but neither of us wanted to say anything. We got on the train very early in the morning so that we could get to Stanley’s house at the agreed time of 11 am. Now during a 4-hour train journey you start to overthink things, and as we sat impatiently on the train both of us started to panic more and more, at this point there was no real reason to panic, Stanley had been replying to our texts and we had no reason to believe that we were being scammed, but clearly, we both felt something was wrong. After a few hours of being agitated on the train one of us let it slip that we were anxious and the other agreed. We went through all the checks we had previously done and read the RAC document 10 times over to try to reassure ourselves, but nothing worked. We then decided to check the house address that we had been given and through paranoid internet research we found out that you could check who the owners of the house were if you paid for it. Now I want to make it completely clear here that we had no reason to believe that Stanley didn’t live at this address, other than a gut feeling we had, but boy was that gut feeling right. We paid to see the names of the homeowners, I don’t remember where we found this information all I know is that we paid money to find out, and the names that came up were not Stanley’s or his wife’s, or even shared the same last name. The panic began to worsen but we tried to reassure ourselves, maybe Stanley’s children own the home or a relative. But I think at this point we knew the truth.
After another hour or so on the train, we got into Exeter and were eager to get to the house and find out if our gut instinct was right. We text Stanley letting him know we were near and would only be 10 minutes or so, to which he replied saying okay, well that must’ve been his cue to turn his phone off and burn it.
As we turned into the street our hearts sank, not a single van was parked in the street. Even though at this point we knew the answer we still decided to go to the house, just in case they knew anything. When we got to the door a lovely old couple answered, they told us that they’d never heard of anyone by those names that we had been given, and I think they could tell by our faces how upset and disheartened we were, they even asked if we were okay and if they could do anything.
As we walked back to the centre of Exeter we tried calling Stanley several times, who at this point had clearly turned his phone off and said goodbye to it. We knew for sure that we had been scammed.
A happy ending?
We found a quiet coffee shop and quickly got on the phone to the bank to report a scam. The bank was very lovely and helpful, they helped calm us down and were very compassionate towards the situation. We sent them all the checks we had done and any documents we had received, they could see that the back account we sent the money to had several other suspicious transactions in the last few week and the bank were able to get our money back and into our account within the hour of being on the phone!
We were extremely lucky in this situation to get the full amount of money back and could not be more thankful to the bank for helping us out.
As many red flags as there were in hindsight, we genuinely thought everything was legit, maybe it was just the excitement and desperation to get on with van life, but we had spoke to this ''Stanley’ several times over text and call, and he stuck to his story consistently, he even asked us our plans for the van and seemed genuinely interested in what we were going to do, asking us questions about van life and traveling - the money stealing psychopath. We did all the checks we could possibly do on the vehicle and we went for it. We know now we definitely shouldn’t have sent money before seeing the van, but because we had been looking for ages and had no luck we were so desperate to get a van, and this one was so far away (4 hrs drive) we felt that it was too much to just go and see it if we weren’t committing.
So that’s our story of how we got scammed.
Thankfully this story did have a happy ending, we very luckily got our money back and not long after found our van Layla which we are now in the process of converting! You can follow our full van conversion over on YouTube as well here on our blog.
