You have bought a car from a different state but you can’t go to pick it up. You decide to look for a shipping service online.

You finally find a great quote, half the cost of most of the others. This will save you both time and money and so you choose to go with it. You check their website and everything looks good. You pay for the service online and wait for the car. It might never arrive. The website could be a fake replica of any legitimate shipping company website.

How to avoid: look carefully at the website – if it has errors of grammar or spelling, it could well be fake (genuine companies get this properly checked). If there is no phone number, don’t touch them. If there is a phone number, give them a call. Check them out on forums – don’t ever pay any attention to references on their own website. If the “company” asks you to wire the money using companies like Money Mart, Western Union, or Money Gram, rather than the paying in a traditional business way, this is almost certainly a scam.