There are bad people on the world wide web, searching and waiting for a chance to scam people to pay for something that does not exist or would never be delivered. At racemarket.net, we are doing everything we can to stop them – at least on our marketplaces.
First, we removed free ads option, which stopped spammy ads which were not related to racing, while our team is constantly moderating all registrations to remove and ban users, which are obvious at first glance.
Afterwards, we introduced inquiry moderation, so our team can delete all inquiries unrelated to your advert, before you get them and save you bad experience. Well, and time, deleting emails is annoying, we know.
But even with all these measures to protect you, you still need to be careful like you should be elsewhere.
So have a look at some tricks you should be aware of:
USEFUL TIPS FOR BUYERS:
In the past year, all of the biggest classified websites have noticed a rise of ads, that looked legit, but as it later turns out, someone stole the images from web and posed as the owner of this car/item that was often already sold by the actual owner. This is a huge problem, as marketplace owners are not aware of them, until actual owner notifies them about it, since the scammers are pretty clever to be as similar as possible to the owner, with almost the same emails and other data.
Sadly, racemarket.net was not immune to these, even though we enforce thorough manual check of each registration and submitted advert
But what can you do to be sure?
– First follow the rule “if it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t“, as certain scammers place prices way lower than the average price of the same item. We had a fully rebuilt Peugeot 208 R2 for 16.000 EUR, who in the right mind would believe this?
– Ask for proof. Ask the seller for the proof of ownership in form of a photo or a video. Let’s say you want to buy a car. Ask the seller to send you a photo from the angle you specify, or a video of a car (walking around it in garage of course, not from the race) or have him write your name on a piece of paper and take a photo/video of this paper on a car.
– Use escrow. The safest way to pay is via escrow service. Our network now offers trustshare escrow services, which ensure seller verification with robust KYC and AML checks, while your money is protected until you confirm that the received item is as agreed. Simply said, if the car or part does not arrive or isn’t in condition that was agreed, you don’t need to pay. Escrow service also gives you a chance to dispute, as opposed to regular bank transfer where you don’t have that option.
Just mentioning the desire to use escrow to the seller would probably expose a scammer, as the latter will be aware of the need of being verified as well as not getting paid if the goods are not sent. Therefore we highly recommend to at least mention escrow, but to be absolutely sure, you should actually use it to finalize the payment too. Yes, it will cost you extra 2-3%, but that’s a small price to pay to be sure, rather than left with nothing.
USEFUL TIPS FOR SELLERS:
Our inquiry moderation will only held the ones, who are unusual and are asking for the basic thing in the shape of “How much is this item” and similar as on the picture below:
Please note that we can only moderate the first email sent though our marketplace. What follows in conversation between you and the buyer is not in our control, so you might get an inquiry which may seem appropriate, but gets unusual later on in conversation via email.
Sometimes it’s enough if you copy »buyer’s« email address into google search, which will reveal if this email is connected to suspicious activities also on other sites.
Never accept check payments in advance, as these are most often forged. The typical check scam involves buyers “accidently overpaying” for an item you’re selling and then request that you should return what the amount that was overpaid after you cash in the check. Once you’ve cashed the checks and forwarded money back to the person that sent you the check, you’ll notified that the checks were forged, stolen, or are counterfeit. It may take a week or several months, but it will be found and who will they come to? You. You will be responsible and will have to return all the money. And good luck finding the “buyer” which will be long gone with the money you helped him stole from the bank.
There are other forms of this scam, learn more about them here.
Paypal: there are common scams, where you receive fake confirmation about payments to your account or even just a notification that you received a payment and you should login immediately via button below. Click on this button will take you to the fake Paypal page, where people often mistakely insert their data, not checking if the url is correct and then the scammers stole their data and use their accounts for payments and withdrawals.
Paypal will never ask you for your user data and nor will racemarket.net team, so if you ever receive something that requires a login to your account at racemarket.net, don’t click on any links and forward it to us immediately.
We recommend using escrow service (trustshare) to stay sure and safe, to know who you are transacting with and to avoid last minute cancellations.
You are responsible for your actions, not racemarket.net, nor any other website or marketplace for that matter. And remember, if it’s too good to be true, it most often isn’t.
