THE main danger of buying used cars was once the dodgy dealer who would palm you off with a write-off or a death trap. These days such characters are being left in the slow lane by online scams that can leave you out of pocket to the tune of thousands of pounds. Online business has witnessed a boom in recent times with more used car buyers than ever scouring the Internet to power their automotive dream. But many click into this world of fast dealing unaware that there are major dangers from con artists who are just waiting to take the money and run. The scope of this lack or awareness has been revealed by car data experts HPI which has discovered that 42per cent of people they questioned did not think that buying online made them more vulnerable to these risks than when buying face to face. Criminals have rapidly become aware that the anonymity of the Internet can offer rich pickings and they they are now in the fast lane of creaming off cash from the innocent and causing misery. One such scam is the ‘virtual car seller', a sophisticated international scam conning online buyers out of millions of pounds. It starts with an advert in a motor magazine or website, with an English seller who has a top-of-the-range car for sale at a knock-down price. The seller is usually in Spain or Portugal and needs to offload the car quickly and the buyer won't be able to see the car as it's already with a shipping company. The real catch is there is no car and any cash will be long gone by the time the buyer realises that they've been had. Cloning - or identity theft for cars - is another potential danger when buying online. Criminal gangs steal a vehicle, and then give it the identity of a similar vehicle already on the road. The criminals disguise the unique 17 digit Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) and replace it with that of another, similar, vehicle legally out on the road, as well as using a stolen V5 document to further legitimise its identity. Experts predict that one in every five sales will be online within the next five years so buying online is here to stay. Buyers may be safer when doing so if they visit the vehicle to inspect it and meet the seller before they purchase it. But the worrying aspect is that nearly 30 per cent of people spoken to by HPI said they would be happy to buy a vehicle online without having seen it first. Obviously a check such as that offered by HPI would be essential but that old legal term 'let the buyer beware' should still be the rule. | 
