Credulous Finnish buyers swindled out of thousands of euros with non-existent cars
Items purchased online never turned up after price had been paid
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As yet more evidence that there is still one sucker being born every minute, news comes in that Finnish individuals have been swindled out of thousands of euros through bogus Internet deals.
People have tried to buy expensive items based on mere photographs.
Later it has turned out that the peddler did not even own the item that he was selling.
For example a car that has been put out for sale may simply have been photographed in passing on the street or at a car dealership.
Among the uncovered incidents is a case investigated by the police in Itä-Uusimaa Province, in which a Finnish individual had paid an advance payment of thousands of euros for a BMW that had been put out for sale through a German website. Needless to say, the car did not arrive, if it ever existed.
“These are sporadic cases, however. It is not an epidemic”, said Det. Insp. Timo Pirinen from the Itä-Uusimaa Police on Tuesday.
As the head of a fraud investigation unit, Pirinen says that cases of Internet scams land on his desk on a daily basis.
Incidents involving large sums of money he encounters every few months.
According to Pirinen, some Finnish individuals have lost more than ten thousand euros when trying to buy non-existent automobiles.
Unravelling such cases is difficult.
Even if the seller is caught, for example, based on the bank account details, retrieving the money can be extremely tricky.
With the help of existing technologies, it is perfectly possible to produce convincing-looking false documents, such as passports, certificates, and registration papers.
Pirinen points out that the best way to make sure that the item truly exists is to go and see it in person.
“Naturally, if one travels all the way to, say, Great Britain to see a car, then the travelling alone costs money. But at least one will then get a holiday in Britain, if nothing else comes out of it.”
These latest Internet scams were first reported by the late-edition tabloid Iltalehti.
It is quite likely that they are also under-reported: many victims are too embarrassed to admit they have been scammed, unless the sums are very large.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 31.3.2010 - TODAY |
 Credulous Finnish buyers swindled out of thousands of euros with non-existent cars |
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