Victim Location 90029
Type of a scam Online Purchase
I put an Ad on AutoTrader.com and received a call from 951-266-5459 , whereby a person (male) asked if the car was still available. After I said "yes", they hung up, and started texting me. They claimed in the text they had to jump into a meeting (this was a Friday evening).
Then he asked if I could go to vinreportchecks.com (165.227.124.181), which then resolves to vinchecked.com, and run the check. They want $18.95 for the vehicle check, but more likely, they wanted a Credit Card number.
When I asked for more info on where he lived, he repeated his request to get the report and that he would pay cash. After I requested to speak to him immediately, and where he lived, the communications stopped.
It’s a reasonably convincing scam if you are not careful, and are in a hurry to sell you vehicle.
Below is the abuse info for their registrar (www.name.com) where they registered their domain names, and I suspect they use multiple domains for this scam, not just the ones listed above:
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: 720-249-2374
So anything that involves the word "vin" and "check", or similar words is suspect. Always look for phone and address information for legitimate sites that will do VIN lookups.