Volkswagen has issued a formal consumer warning in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland after fraudsters began operating realistic imitation websites mimicking VW's used car sales operation. The sites list genuine looking vehicles, often priced attractively below market, complete with fake VW branding, fabricated email addresses, phone numbers, and bank account details. Buyers who transfer money receive nothing. The cars do not exist. The sites disappear.
It is the second time in under twelve months that VW has had to issue almost identical warnings to the same countries. Mercedes and Audi have published comparable alerts in the same period. The fact that major manufacturers are now routinely warning their own customer bases about fake versions of themselves tells you something about both the scale of the problem and the sophistication of the people behind it.
The Market These Scams Are Feeding On
The timing is not accidental. The UK used car market alone pulled in an estimated £64 billion in revenue in 2024, with the average retail price of a used car hitting £16,984 in April 2025. Cars were selling in an average of just 27 days, the fastest April on record. Buyers are competing for stock in a market where good deals disappear quickly. That pressure is exactly what scammers exploit. When a car you want is priced slightly below what you have been seeing elsewhere and the seller creates urgency around it, the instinct to move fast overrides the instinct to verify.
According to research by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, there were 3.5 million cases of fraud in 2024, resulting in £11.4 billion being stolen from consumers. Nearly a third of Brits encountered a scam attempt at least once a month in 2024, and 52 percent reported an increase in attempts compared with the previous year. Used car fraud sits inside that broader wave and is growing with it.
Data from Lloyds Banking Group shows that almost 79 percent of car and van scams they process are advertised on social media. Liz Ziegler, the bank's Fraud Prevention Director, told Auto Express directly: "The vast majority of these scams start on Facebook, where it's far too easy for criminals to set up fake profiles and advertise items that simply don't exist."
The VW operation described in the current warnings is a step beyond a social media listing. These are purpose built websites carrying manufacturer branding, structured to pass casual scrutiny. Car Dealer Magazine, which has been investigating and cataloguing fake dealership websites since 2022, has documented 23 confirmed fraudulent operations in the UK alone, with criminal gangs in some cases directly taunting legitimate dealers after cloning their businesses. One gang boasted to an actual dealer that they had made £100,000 replicating his showroom online.
How the Fraud Actually Works
The mechanics are consistent across operations. A realistic website is built using stolen photography from legitimate dealerships and classified platforms. Stock images of genuine cars in genuine settings make the inventory appear real. Prices are set slightly below market, enough to attract attention without triggering immediate suspicion.
The fraudsters use fake contact details: email addresses designed to look official, phone numbers that may go to voicemail requesting email contact, and bank accounts specifically opened to receive and quickly move transferred funds. Some operations go further, providing fake contracts, fabricated vehicle history reports, and money-back guarantee documentation to create additional legitimacy.
Once payment is made, contact ceases. In more sophisticated operations, the seller maintains engagement for slightly longer to delay the point at which the buyer contacts their bank, since the window for stopping a bank transfer is narrow.
The Wisconsin DMV described the fraud model precisely in their equivalent 2025 warning: "An individual creates a website or a social media profile claiming to be a dealership. Stock images or photos of real vehicles and real dealerships are included to make the website seem legitimate. The advertised vehicles may be listed at below market value, causing interested consumers to take the bait." Volkswagen's European warning describes an identical operation on the other side of the Atlantic.
The Red Flags, Specific and Actionable
The signals are consistent across every documented case. Phone numbers prefixed with +44 rather than the standard 0 format that UK businesses use. Gmail or free webmail addresses rather than domain-matched contact details. No presence on legitimate classified platforms like AutoTrader or Motors.co.uk. No independently verifiable reviews. Addresses that match genuine businesses but with slight spelling variations in the domain name.
Jim Holder, editorial director at What Car?, summarised the buyer's position clearly: "If there's a single red flag, be it a price that's too good to be true, a +44 number, a query from a Google map search, or pressing for a deposit, then walk away. Very few used cars are unique, and even fewer are bargains. Chances are, you'll always be able to find the car you want from elsewhere."
The specific checks to run before any money moves: search the exact domain name, not just the business name, against Companies House or the equivalent national business registry. Check the physical address on Google Maps Street View. Ring the phone number listed on the genuine manufacturer's official website, not the one on the suspect site. Run the vehicle registration number through the DVLA's free online checker at gov.uk/check-vehicle-details to confirm it exists and matches the description. A car with the plates shown should have a verifiable MOT history.
Never pay by bank transfer before seeing a vehicle in person. Chris Ainsley, Head of Fraud Risk Management at Santander, stated: "The single best thing anybody can do to protect their money is to not transfer any funds until the vehicle is in their possession, and they have seen it in person." That principle applies regardless of how convincing the website looks or how many reassuring messages the seller has sent.
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If You Have Already Paid
Speed matters. Contact your bank immediately. They may be able to stop the payment or help trace where the money went. Report the scam to Action Fraud at actionfraud.police.uk or by calling 0300 123 2040. Notify Trading Standards through your local council if the seller presented as a registered business.
If the listing was on Facebook Marketplace, report the seller through the platform's reporting function and flag the listing as fraudulent. Meta has acknowledged the scale of the problem on its platforms without yet implementing changes that meaningfully reduce it. Liz Ziegler at Lloyds noted that it is time social media companies were held accountable for their approach to consumer protection, given that the overwhelming majority of fraud originates on their platforms.
VW's own guidance for affected buyers mirrors this: contact local police and report to the relevant national fraud authority. The cars never existed. The money is gone the moment it moves. The only variables are how quickly you can trigger a recall and how thoroughly you document the evidence for authorities.
The Larger Problem
The sophistication of these operations is increasing in direct proportion to the tools available to build them. AI generated content makes website copy indistinguishable from legitimate dealer sites. Stolen photography is instantly accessible. Fake business registrations cost almost nothing to create and take days to have removed. The barrier to launching a convincing fraudulent used car operation has never been lower.
Fraud and scam complaints to the UK ombudsman rose 45 percent in Q3 of 2024 to 9,091 cases. The rising cost of living has pushed more drivers toward the second hand market, and that pressure creates exactly the conditions scammers rely on.
VW issuing this warning for the second time in twelve months to the same countries is not a sign that the problem is being contained. It is a sign that the problem has not been contained, that the operations are persistent and profitable enough to keep running despite awareness campaigns, and that the only reliable protection is a buyer who knows precisely what to look for before any money leaves their account.
The car at the price you want, listed by a site that looks official, requesting a transfer to secure it before someone else takes it: that sequence is the fraud. Every element of it is designed to compress the time between finding the listing and making the payment, because scrutiny and delay are the only things that stop it working.
