As car fanatics, we love to indulge in a little bit of car window shopping. You know, looking through the online classifieds hoping to add a dream car to your imaginary garage.

Sometimes, you do come across a deal that sounds way too good to be true and on rare occasions, it really is a good deal. Unfortunately for a contractor, he fell victim to a scam.

According to local reports, the 53-year old man from Pekan, Pahang stumbled across an ad for a Ford Ranger Raptor that was for sale on Facebook for RM 36,000 on 3-October.

That price already sets off quite a few red flags as the performance-oriented Ranger was launched in 2019 and costs RM 208,888. We've all heard of depreciation but this is a little too much for a truck that's only a year old.

Anyway, the victim was too enraptured with the price and contacted the seller through the phone number listed. The seller then asked for pictures of the victim’s IC, driving license, a copy of the SSM certificate, and the latest bank statement for the purposes of loan approval.

The scammer (no point calling him a seller now) then asked for RM 2,500 as a deposit. The victim made payments totaling RM 6,100 into 2 different accounts on 5-October.

The victim was also asked to transfer RM 5,812 as road tax payment with an additional RM 2,500 for JPJ vehicle registration.

Once the payment was done (RM 14,412 in total), the victim was informed that the Ranger Raptor will be delivered via tow truck.

When the victim called the tow truck driver’s number, he was given a lot of excuses. It was then that the victim realized he was being bamboozled and lodged a police report at the Pekan police station.

It is very unlikely for the victim to get back all of his money but scams like these are pretty prevalent. So the next time you come across your dream car in the classifieds with a really attractive price, it’s best to do a bit of research before putting on a deposit.