Hi,

Mods- please sticky this in an area where people will read it, cheers.

Ive not been on these forums for a while but i thought that I should make everyone aware of this.

I am currently trying to sell my octavia and last night 2 gentlemen came to look at the car with the intention of paying cash and taking it there and then.

I had told them on the phone that I would need cash and notes that were no greater than 20 pounds.

When they arrived, they arrived in another skoda octavia estate, similar to mine but silver which they had apparently purchased in the Leeds/Bradford are.

They had explained that they had flown in from the Checz Republic into Leeds/Bradford airport, bought the first car, and then they intended to buy my car and carry on driving south (probably straight onto the ferry at Dover).

They looked arround the car and said they would like to buy it, only they said "we have small problem, we could only get 50 pound notes".

I told them I would not accept these notes for security reasons and they had to be 20 pound notes or below.

They started laying on the guilt trip "we have flown all the way from Chezloslovakia (sorry, bad spelling) what are we supposed to do, we have to take this car"

I told them I would still not take the 50 pound notes (im sure no one else in their right mind would either)

They said "what are we supposed to do,, we only have 50's" to which I explained that I had told them plenty in advance that i required 20 pound notes or less.

They said, "where can we change it?" to which I said "a bank", all banks were convinently closed as it was 9.00pm.

They told me that a petrol station on the M1 near sheffield (I live near Derby!) had taken a 50 pound note for petrol and they said "you come with us in our car to sheffield and we get them to check it"

To which I replied "NO".

They then strated asking if i was frightened and didnt i trust them. I answered "no" to both questions (one of them was a lie)

After debating like this for 10-15 minutes, they then decided to try and go to the local Tescos to try and change 1600 pounds worth of 50's into 20s!!!!!!!!!!

I heard nothing for over 90 minutes and I though (and was hoping) they'd decided to leave it altogether (or tescos had detained them for the police to deal with)

But then i got a text message saying, "we could not get them changed, so we will sleep in the car and tomorow we will come round with the 50's and we will go to the petrol station in sheffield to change them because we have to get back to the Checz Republic tomorow)

At this point I rang them and told them I would not be in the morning and i needed my car for transportation and i still did not wnat 50's.

So they said "so what are you saying, we can't buy it?"

So i did the sensible thing (I did not wnat them sleeping in the car round the corner waiting for me in the morning) and told them that it was now a "no sale".

To which i reived an immense ammount of profanities and severl "I spit on you"' phrases of the nature I dont wnat to repeat.

I told them at this point I was ringing the police and all I heard was a muffled "****" as they put the phone down.

I rnag the police non-emergency number and because I was worried about my house/property they said they would have officers poping by throughout the day on there way to and from places and gave me a crime number etc.

Long story short.

1. They could have got 20 pound notes at the airport

2. They still wanted to give me 50's today as nowhere would change them (they obviously knew a bank would reject them

3. The 50's must have been fake and the whole situation makes it so they have to take your car now or not at all (and it seems the not at all option makes them give you threatening behaivour)

These guys seem to be buying Skoda Octavia TDI's for whatever use using fake/laundered/stolen 50 pound notes.

There are a lot of them, they contacted me through my ad on autotrader aswell as on ebay, all form the checz republic and the phone numbers started +42

If you are selling your car, just be very very careful of these people, i am inexperienced at selling cars but i knew in my head that something dodgy was going off and it all seemed to revolve arround the 50 pound notes.

If you are from the Checz Republic, please do not think I am having a go at your country or your people, to be honest they didnt actually look like Checz people.

If you have had any similar occurnaces or you recieve any in the future, please let me know.

Beware on EBay aswell as they are on there!!!!!!

Sorry for the essay but I wanted to let the Skoda community know.

GrantB

You were very sensible and totally correct:thumbup: . You should be aware that there has recently been a huge bust of a counterfeit ring in this country and a lot of the notes are

And it's Czech

Why not buy a money testing pen for future references? £50 notes are easier to check than £20's. On a £50 note, on one side, there's a red triangle at the bottom. Rub it on some A4 paper, If red ink come's off, you can tell it's real. Unfortunately, you can't do that with £20's.

For future reference and to be extra cautious, can you ask that the money hand-over be done (during working hours of course) at your bank?

Will the bank confirm on the spot that the cash is real?

I guess the other advantage of this is that there may well be CCTV around, which might put off any dodgy characters.

You can PM me with any further details (ie their reg number,any names etc) and I'll keep an eye out for them.

I work at Customs at Dover and they're probably in and out all the time.

This doesn't surprise me in the least. There are alot of dodgy Central / East Europeans into all sorts of scams.

Regards

Steve

Excellent, im pretty sure they were going straight onto a ferry with them. The car they came in was almost exacty the same as yours but with steel wheels. To be honest they looked more Ukrainian than Checz. Ill see if my mum still has the reg plate of the silver one.

Tha name the guy gave me was "Roman" and that was it.

Cheers for stickying this up, at the end of the day, not a lot of poeple in shops with conterfewit pens or UV checkers will take 50 pound notes and i specifically asked for 20's so I could tell that there was soemthing wrong.

cheers for the warning

No probs. apparently the day after this happened, two "Checz" guys went into a natwest near me trying to chnage 50's and they wouldnt take them so theres definately something going down.

I don't understand, how is it harder to forge a 20 pound bill than 50 ?

Thanks for the warning. When I sold that white octy estate to a group of 3 Polish chaps, I was a little worried, but thankfully they were genuine and paid in £20s. I really would prefer to take a bankers draft nowadays.

Thing is, even Bankers Drafts can be forged, and the funds withdrawn from your account when the forgery is identified!

I've taken people to the bank before to pay cash in for me, neither of the 2 people I have done this with refused. If someone even looked slightly shifty or refused then its a no sale.

Another thing is to not let people drive your car without proof of insurance.

Wah, that's quite a read, particularly as I just sold my old Mondeo two a couple of Polish guys who paid with a pair of £50 notes. They didn't seem at all bothered that the car wouldn't start for the first few minutes, either. A friend of mine works in Customs and Excise at Gatwick and verified the notes were real, but it did strike me as a little odd at the time.

At the end of the day, banks round my area won't accept the 50's as i previously mentioned so I would have been stuck. Im not saying 50s are more easily forgable but i've only ever seen 2 in my life, one was handed over by a customer at my old place of work who was a well known footballer at my local football club (at the time they were in the premiership) and you expect someone like that to have them.

The other was at a different place of work and was a fake.

I dont know them well enough to check them. At the end of the day I just suspected something dodgy was going on and when they live that far away you have no return.

ive just sold my impreza today for cash, the guy wasnt czec or anything and ive got a mixture of 50's and 20's so im sat here rubbing each 50 on a peice of paper to make sure!

ive just tried the 20's too and if you rub the purple square on them they mark the paper purple like the 50s mark the paper red

Thanks for the warning. When I sold that white octy estate to a group of 3 Polish chaps, I was a little worried, but thankfully they were genuine and paid in

There are also a lot of dud and fraudulent foreign cheques about at the moment. I've seen a lot of cheques drawn in ££ on banks in southern Ireland - all forgeries. The trouble is they look like ordinary cheques and are fooling a lot of people - so beware!

Andy

Hmm , this scenario makes trading a car in seem the best option , even if you do get less for it!

banks are legally obliged to accept all valid forms of tender, including £50 notes.

they can only refuse if they beleive them to be fake, based on testing prior to acceptance. it is the bank emplyees job to check thoroughly. i worked in natwest for less than a year. left cos it was a crap job, for the level of responsability!

a lot of poles will pay in £20s and £50s. is how they get paid, either legally or illegally. usually illegally from CiH jobs, plus with 50's its very easy to tell just from touch if uve handled them regularly. its very hard to age a fake note, without destroying it. newish notes and ones that feel washed out are the ones to keep an eye out for.

and never rely on just watermark checking. UV pens are the way to go now. it gives you back up so u can prove u checked the note, often even if its a very good fake, and it passes the uv note, banks will often still credit you it. if a20 or 50 passes the uv test, next stage is just checking the shape. i hve had poorly "cut" 50's that ive rejected because they arent actually perfectly oblong.

There are also a lot of dud and fraudulent foreign cheques about at the moment. I've seen a lot of cheques drawn in

I totally agree with you - obviously we must look out for dodgy notes etc and take precautions......

I think its also good to not tar all the eastern Europeans with the same brush.

I work with loads of lovely people from Poland and Lithuania and 90% are fantastic people - most of them really highly educated and great guys too. + The women are beautiful - (but don't tell SWMBO!)