£250,000 worth of stolen caravans spotted online
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Research into this issue revealed that 8% of all caravans stolen in the UK end up for sale online. The area around London is most prevalent for this, with Cambridgeshire, Thames Valley and Hertfordshire police forces reporting the most stolen caravans listed on eBay.
Unsuspecting caravanners have purchased these caravans in good faith, not realising that the tourer will never ‘belong to them’. Caravan Theft Alerts research has revealed that this has cost victims more than £250,000 in the last three years.
One such unsuspecting caravanner is Keith Roberts, who approached Caravan Theft Alerts after seeing a caravan that he had been duped into buying on eBay listed for sale again on the website. Keith unfortunately lost £5500 from the sale and has been unable to recover his money. He is now undergoing a lengthy fraud case with his bank, with no guarantee of success.
Following the realisation that Keith had purchased a stolen caravan he told Caravan Theft Alerts that there had been some warning signs that he hadn’t noticed at the time.
“Some of the photos that I was sent were taken in different locations," he explains. "A few were in front of a house and other internal pictures were in what appeared to be a storage site. At the time I thought they had just gathered a number of photos together, but in fact these were probably not the same caravan at all.”
However, for caravanners it isn’t all bad news as, if your caravan is stolen and listed for sale online there is a much better chance of recovery. The recovery rate for stolen caravans listed for sale on internet sites is 44%, which compares favourably to the standard 3% seen in the industry.
Caravan’s advice when buying a caravan seen online:
• Avoid deals that seem too good to be true. They almost always are!• Ensure you always see the caravan before purchasing.
• Always do a CRiS check before you part with your money
• Always ask to see paperwork and receipts, etc.
• Fraudsters often say the caravan is abroad (or somewhere distant) and will be shipped as soon as the money is cleared.
• Don’t be fooled by complex back-stories and apparently ‘nice people’ – these con-men can be very convincing.
• Have the caravan checked by an engineer before parting with large amounts of money.
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