The old car selling scam of a guy in debt
Due to his business failures, Phuc came up with the idea of defrauding people. His method was to go to used car websites to get information and pictures of the cars, then sell them to people in need and then take the money to pay off debts and spend.
On July 2, Nghe An Provincial People's Court opened the first instance trial of defendant Nguyen Duy Phuc (born 1997), residing in Yen Thanh commune (Van Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district), Nghe An province, for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".
Nguyen Duy Phuc works in the used car business, so he often buys and sells cars with many people across the country. Since the beginning of 2024, due to business losses and debt, Phuc came up with the idea of appropriating other people's property.
The car dealer's trick is to go to used car sale websites to get information and pictures of the car, then offer it to people in need.
To make customers trust and transfer money, Phuc sold at a lower price than the price Phuc agreed to buy in order to get money in advance from customers.
On June 23, 2024, through a used car sales page online, Phuc saw a person wanting to sell a Hyundai Accent car for 350 million VND, so he texted to buy it and deposited 5 million VND so that this person could send information and pictures of the car.
When he got the information about the car, Phuc posted an article, pictures, and the car registration certificate to sell the car. At the same time, Phuc texted Nguyen Hai L. (born in 1982, residing in Hung Yen province) to offer the car for sale at 340 million VND.
On the afternoon of June 26, knowing that Mr. L. had agreed to buy the car before and because he needed more money, Phuc offered to sell another car for 295 million VND.
When the customer agreed to buy 2 cars, Phuc asked for half of the money to be transferred in advance as a deposit in order to appropriate the money. Trusting him, Mr. L. transferred 395 million VND to Phuc in advance. Nguyen Duy Phuc used this amount to pay off debts for many people.
After receiving the money, Phuc repeatedly lied to the customer about delivering the cars. Phuc sent photos of the two cars and told Mr. L. that the cars were being transported.
A few days later, when the car still hadn’t arrived, Mr. L. asked Phuc to send him the phone number of the car transport driver so he could contact him. At that time, Phuc asked a friend to pretend to be the driver transporting the two cars for the customer.
Continuing to wait for the car to return, Mr. L. went to Di An City (Binh Duong) to meet Phuc. At this time, Phuc lied again but the incident was exposed. After many times of asking for the money back without success, Mr. L. filed a complaint against Phuc to the police.
On September 20, 2024, the police arrested Nguyen Duy Phuc in an emergency.
At the trial, the defendant admitted to his crime. Phuc said that due to business losses and debt, he took the risk to defraud others. The defendant apologized to the victim and asked the court to consider reducing his sentence.
After a comprehensive review of the case, the People's Court sentenced Nguyen Duy Phuc to 3 years in prison for "Fraudulent appropriation of property".