Online Lease Scam Exposed

Tuesday, 12. August 2008

BMW Financial Services have warned about an increase in lease scams whereby cars are obtained illegally by the scammers then sub leased to innocent third parties. One such fraudulent act included the customer signing the documents of a well known finance company and a seperate direct debit form which paid money straight into the scammer’s account and not the contract hirer’s account. The scammer made no payments for the car and disappeared whilst the driver continued to pay money into the scammer’s account. This can go on for months as it can often take this long for the finance company to track the car and find out who is actually driving the car as it may have passed through a few online brokers and also a rental company. So when you see a car offered at a rate that looks too good to be true – as they say – it probably is. Beware of taking out leases from companies advertising on the Internet – you could end up having the car reposessed with no one to approach other than yourself. By Graham Hill