Warning: MSN Cars Vehicle Purchase Protection Program FRAUD - MSN Cars Third Party Program - MSN Autos Buyer Protection - MSN Autos Used Cars Buying Program - MSN Autos Protection Service - MSN Autos Escrow Service - MSN Money Third Party Program - attempted FRAUD

Dear internet users,

Criminals are mounting a concerted attempt to defraud users of MSN Cars, MSN Autos, and Auto Trader at present, and are also using other famous internet company brand names (e.g. Yahoo!, AOL, eBay) in order to try and facilitate these frauds.

You have quite possibly ended up on this page as a result of a web search. In which case, I urge you to please read the below carefully as it will save you a lot of money - and stop crooks getting rich for doing nothing apart from hanging about in a cybercafe somewhere all day trying to steal innocent people's cash.

These people are advertising mostly premium cars at very cheap prices on Auto Trader whose listings also appear within MSN Cars (and other used car listings websites both in the UK, US, and other countries) - and when contacted via e-mail, claim that MSN Cars (MSN's UK car website) or MSN Autos (MSN's US car website) offers an intermediary scheme called the 'MSN Autos Vehicle Purchase Protection Program' or 'MSN Autos Third Party Program' or 'MSN Autos Protection Service' or 'MSN Autos Buyer Protection' or other variations thereof, including brand names of other companies.

These advertisers will exhibit a curious reluctance to talk to you on the telephone (though they may do so), but will certainly and most definitely have no interest whatsoever in meeting you face-to-face - and will produce every excuse under the sun for why they cannot do this.

They will typically spin some tedious yarn about splitting up with their wives, travelling a lot in their job as a cargo pilot, having some deadly disease, being heavily pregnant, getting divorced, or some other reason to justify selling their vehicle at a steep discount to prevailing market value and to never wanting to meet in person. They will sometimes pretend to be an 'innocent female' and to thus pretend they don't know a car's true value, and so on.

They will wax lyrical with you about the wonderful state of the car: no scratches, never having been smoked in and so on. The car is indeed wonderful - so wonderful that it does not even exist. They may often be able to supply a VIN number and/or registration number that matches a genuine car - but that proves nothing.

Microsoft and MSN Cars must strenuously assert the following:

THE "MSN Cars Vehicle Purchase Protection Program" AND SIMILAR SYSTEMS DO NOT EXIST. THIS IS NOTHING TO DO WITH MSN CARS, MSN Autos OR AUTO TRADER. IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO DEFRAUD, PLAIN AND SIMPLE. YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO DELETE THE E-MAIL AND NOT TO ENTER INTO ANY COMMUNCIATION WITH THE SENDER WHATSOEVER.

DO NOT SEND THEM ANY MONEY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - YOU WILL NEVER SEE IT AGAIN, NOR A CAR.

MSN Cars and Microsoft are closely engaged with our internet security colleagues and Auto Trader to take further action on this matter. MSN Cars and Microsoft take the welfare of our users extremely seriously and we hate the idea that our name is being abused in this way - and we definitely do not want anyone to be defrauded because of it.

There is no such thing as a free lunch

The used car market for almost all cars is extremely liquid and a cursory glance at used car listings or price guides like Parkers will immediately reveal what that market price is.

Any car offered for significantly less than this is likely to have major issues:

- The car may be stolen.

- It may have outstanding payments due on it.

- It may have major crash damage.

- The car may not exist at all (as in the above example) and is a pure invitation for you to send a fraudster money and for them to vanish without trace.

The world might be a better place if it was full of people who legitimately sold things to complete strangers for far less than the market has decided they are worth, out of the goodness of their heart. But this is not our world. As ever on the internet as in life please take great care in all financial dealings with people you don't know. If it smells wrong, it almost certainly is. If it looks too good to be true, unfortunately it almost certainly is.

Even if the car seems appropriately priced you should NEVER send money to people you haven't even talked to, to buy a car you have never even seen, supposedly located in another country or a distant part of your own country. There is an army of people out there who will happily take your money and disappear into the electronic ether - please do not keep them in work.


If you have been in touch with these criminals, please forward all their e-mails etc. with any additional information to:

msncars@live.co.uk

Yours faithfully,
Tom Evans
Content Manager, MSN Cars

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