Most car selling scams start with a buyer who won’t inspect the car

The buyer who won’t inspect the car is the one to worry about. Shopping scams drew more than 6,300 reports of financial loss in the first half of 2025, more than any other scam type in Scamwatch data. Car selling scams run on three patterns.

What do car selling scams against sellers look like?

They all share one shape. A buyer offers to pay without ever seeing the car, sends you something that looks like a payment confirmation, then asks you to move money of your own. WA ScamNet describes bogus buyers targeting online car sellers with fake PayPal transactions, typically claiming to work in a remote location and happy to buy sight unseen.

From there it splits three ways, all of them documented by WA ScamNet:

• The courier request. The buyer says poor phone reception stops them paying the courier directly, so they ask you to pay the courier instead and promise to send extra money to cover it.
• The overpayment. The buyer claims to have paid too much for the car and asks you to refund the excess, sometimes attaching a receipt as supposed proof the money went through.
• The freight transfer. An overseas buyer negotiates the price down, asks you to open a PayPal account, then emails a notice saying the funds are deposited but cannot be released until you wire money to a freight company that does not exist.

The common thread is the fake receipt. Sellers get a PayPal or bank confirmation stating the funds are on hold until they pay the courier or refund the overpayment, and only work out afterwards that no money ever arrived. If the pattern of an overseas agent asking for money before anything moves sounds familiar, the same logic drives the red flags around import buying agents.

Cars are not the only bait. WA ScamNet says sellers of motorbikes, caravans, trailers and horse floats have all been worked the same way.

How do you spot a fake buyer?

A fake buyer gives themselves away by behaviour, not by a badly written email. WA ScamNet lists the signals, and most fake buyers show several at once.

• They want to deal only by email and will not get on the phone.
• They have no interest in inspecting the car.
• They say they work somewhere remote and cannot travel.
• They ask for your PayPal or bank details plus a pickup address, supposedly for a courier quote.
• They claim to have overpaid and want the difference returned.
• They ask you to send money to a third party.

Treat an email-only buyer as suspect, push for an inspection on your own driveway, and try to finish the sale in person. That one habit kills every version of the scam.

The money at stake is real. Australians reported about $174.8 million lost to scams in the first six months of 2025, a 26 per cent rise on the same period in 2024, with an average reported loss of $12,212, according to National Anti-Scam Centre figures published by the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network. Total reports actually fell 24 per cent to 108,305 over that period, while reports involving a financial loss rose 40.5 per cent. Fewer people are reporting, and more of those who do have lost money.

How should you take payment for a car you’ve sold privately?

Log in to your own bank or PayPal account and confirm the money has arrived before you do anything else. That is WA ScamNet’s core advice to sellers, and it is the step the whole scam depends on you skipping. An email, an SMS or a screenshot is not evidence of payment.

Fake confirmations are convincing because that is a whole industry of its own. Phishing, which covers emails impersonating banks and payment services, cost Australians $19.5 million in the first half of 2025 on Scamwatch figures. A bank transfer you watch land in your own balance is safer than any emailed receipt, however official the receipt looks.

Two rules cover the rest. Never forward funds to a third party such as a courier or a freight company on a buyer’s behalf, no matter what they have promised to send you. And according to WA ScamNet, PayPal’s own guidance is that a genuine payment email will never carry a condition requiring you to transfer money to someone else before the funds release. The ACCC’s National Anti-Scam Centre puts it more broadly: take a few moments to verify the other party, and stick to secure payment methods.

Best for private sellers: a buyer who turns up, inspects the car, and transfers the money while you watch your own banking app update.

What should you hand over, and when?

Nothing until the money is in your account. The NSW Government tells private sellers not to sign any document that transfers ownership of the vehicle until they have received payment or the agreed trade. Keys, keys fobs, service books and signed forms all stay with you until then.

Before you list the car, sort out the three things NSW says a private seller must be able to show: proof you are entitled to sell the vehicle, confidence the buyer can register it, and no finance owing against it. If there is a loan attached, read up on selling a car with finance still owing before you take a deposit, because a secured debt is the one thing a cash buyer cannot fix on the day.

After the sale, close your side of it. A private seller in NSW must lodge a notice of disposal within 14 days, which the NSW Government says is free to lodge but may attract a late fee if you miss the window. Remove your e-tag and delete the number plate from your toll account. Rules and deadlines differ by state, so check what a registration transfer leaves you liable for where you live.

Where do you report a car selling scam?

Report the attempt to Scamwatch, the ACCC’s reporting service, and to the consumer protection agency in your state. Reporting a message that went nowhere still matters, because it is how these patterns get tracked.

If you have already paid money out, contact your financial institution as soon as you can, which is WA ScamNet’s first instruction to anyone caught. If you handed over personal information along the way, WA ScamNet points sellers to the identity support service IDCARE on 1800 595 160. A suspicious PayPal email can be forwarded to spoof@paypal.com.

The listing itself is not the risky part of selling privately. The risk sits in the gap between a buyer saying they have paid and the money being there, and you control that gap entirely. Wait for the balance to change, hand over nothing before it does, and the three scams above have nothing to work with.