Help me find the people who stole my dad's money!
About one week ago, my 62 year old dad was conned out of £5,300 (almost all the money he had in the world).
He doesn’t know I’m posting this and I’m not using his name or my own, mainly because he's so upset & embarrassed about being manipulated in this way. I’m still the only family member who knows about this crime.
I really need your help to find the people who have his money.
I have some details on them which I’ll list below, so together I hope we can track them down and hand them over to the police.
Here’s what happened:
Last Wednesday (28/01/2015) I was in the theater with my wife, just about to go into an afternoon show when my phone beeped with this text message from my dad.
The text from my dad read:
“You’re the first person I’m telling….. I’m 99% sure I’ve been conned re the car (which probably doesn’t exist) to the tune of £5,380. No fool like an old fool. I had to tell someone. We’ve still got some savings, but not much. I’ve not cried yet but I think I will in a minute. Love you loads. Pa x”
It was a horrible text to read, especially knowing that my, usually broke dad, only had the money due to a small redundancy payment from a teaching job he’d had in for 20 years.
The week before this happened he sent me an email, saying that he was really looking forward to taking delivery of a 3 year Volvo he was buying to replace his old car.
What actually happened was this.
My dad saw the Volvo on eBay & contacted the buyer.
They told him that if he bought the car via bank transfer they’d deliver it after the weekend.
The car never arrived, the seller stopped answering the phone/responding to emails/texts etc.
My dad informed the police, Ebay, & the fraud office.
The police, eBay & the fraud office seem to have immediately run out of steam and so far as I can tell, aren't doing anything to try and trace the con man/men, who are probably doing the same thing over & over again.
No one else seems to be able to help get my dad’s money back.
This is why I’m trying to start the investigation myself.
This is why I need your help.
Info I have on the con men:
(I suspect most or all of the following is fake but it may help to find them anyway).
Business Name: ‘Shears Car Sales’
Website: http://shearscarsales.wix.com/shearscarsales
Email: [email protected]
Ebay account: http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/shearscarsales
Phone numbers:
01202 808 548 07404 471 581
Personal Names Given: Mark Williams, Andrew Shears & Samantha Shears.
Bank details: (they sent two invoices with different details)
Bank Name: Barclays Bank
Sort Code: 20-47-39
Account Number: 03530736
Account Name: Mr K Arun (I'm guessing this is a real name)
And:
Bank Name: Lloyds Bank
Sort Code: 30-92-49
Account Number: 24544860
Account Name: Mr K Arun (Same name again)
Address (I know this doesn’t exist):
Shears House, High Street, Christchurch, BH23 1AS
Here's a link to another listing on a different car sales website for the same car they ‘sold’ my dad is here:
http://bay2car.com/2011-Volvo-V50-1-6D-DRIVe-SE-Lux-261726014712/car39699
The image they used to advertise the car:
I’ve googled all the information in various combinations over & over but it mainly brings up results for business listings sites that they’ve registered with & a couple of other car listings they have on the internet.
I know it’s a long shot but what I’m really hoping is that some clever hacker guy or girl can use the above details to help me track down a real address for them.
They’ve gone into some detail to make their car listings look real, but when you take the time to look closely it’s all been thrown together pretty quickly & roughly.
They must have made some mistakes that will trip them up and help us find these thieves.
If you have any good ideas on how to find them or can use the info I’ve listed to track them down I would be incredibly grateful!!
If any info leads to my dad getting his money back then there would be a small cash reward for the person responsible.
Thank you so much for reading this!!! Please please link, share, repost, retweet, and spread this around as much as possible!
I will post regular updates on any progress we make with this.
Please send any thoughts, ideas or information to: