Buyer beware: Ontario woman loses $1,800 in Montreal Kijiji used car scam

Stephanie Richards thought it could never happen to her. Until it did.

The Ontario woman says she was scammed out of $1,800 by someone claiming to be selling a car online out of Montreal.

“I was looking on Kijiji for a used car and then there happened to be a ‘98 RAV4 that I was really interested in and the price was very good,” said Richards, who’s from Pembroke, Ont.

Richards contacted CityNews to share her story and warn others not to fall in a similar trap.

“It hurts and especially me being a single mom, that money, I really did need that money for the car because now I have nothing for a car,” she said.

Richards says the seller asked her to send the money beforehand. Despite having doubts, she figured because the car was coming from Montreal, paying beforehand made sense.

“I had to send it through Western Union, and they said everything would be fine because there’s a password and just don’t give us the password and we won’t take out the money,” she said. “And I was like, ‘OK, great. So, I’ll see the car and then I can give them the password if I liked the car.’

“And so, I sent them a picture of the receipt but I had covered up the password from the Western Union. And somehow, they took the money out like 30 minutes later.”

CityNews reached out to Western Union but did not immediately hear back.

The seller kept emailing asking for more money and that’s when Richards realized she was being scammed.

“The last communication I had with this seller, they actually said this is a scam,” Richards said.

‘Don’t send money before you see a vehicle’

George Iny, the director of the Automobile Protection Association, says when a seller asks for money beforehand, consider that a red flag.

“Don’t send money before you see a vehicle,” Iny recommended. “Don’t provide key money. Those are bad signs. If someone is outside of the country and they claim to be a Canadian, they have an account in Canada. They don’t need a wire transfer.”

Iny says these types of online scams are more common than most people think.

“Kijiji and AutoTrader, they had both been fingered at one point for running a lot of very crummy ads and being a bit slow on the switch, saying they couldn’t do anything about it,” Iny said. “They both promised, and I believe they still maintain the pledge, that when they’re notified now, they remove the ads quickly. They claim they have software that allows them to recognize bad ads. I don’t fully believe it because we still get complaints.”

Kijiji Canada told CityNews they have safeguards in place such as actively monitoring the platform and removing suspicious listings or accounts. Kijiji Canada also pointed to tools that make it easier for users to report suspicious activities, as well as an education and awareness page to help users avoid getting scammed.

Richards says she did not file a police report.

“People like me who are naive, and we feel dumb when it happens, right? I was the silly one that paid for a car that I didn’t even get to see,” she said.

“People who are fraudulent rely on that sense of guilt or culpability,” added Iny. “So, I can tell her one thing, that she’s not a unique individual, even though she may think she is. Literally thousands of people have been taken the same way.