had the same thing happen with me on carsales.
another message led to another and i eventually told them where to go!
yeah and by the way, carsales has a large notice on the login page about these scam emails with "agents"

if you look in the header of the email you can work out the point of origin via whereis etc.

The last email scam I received was saying deceasaed estate etc in U.K. but the point of origin was east coast, south africa, which I emailed them asking about the weather there etc and all emails stopped.

To say it is a scam is an understatement to say the least. the whole 'have to have it soon' - who the hell can't find a means of transport locally, to the extent that it would be financially viable to ship one in from overseas, with all the costs involved? If it was some rare exotic sports car or something for sure, but for something like this case?

The curiousity is precisely what scam they are running. It's possibly the good old cheque cashing/refund one. Essentially in the US (afaik no bank in Aus would do it without an established history with the peson sending the money and the person with the local account) they have to honour a cheque if it is banked. If it turns out not to have funds behind it, the person cashing it can be done for fraud if they don't return the money. So what the scammers do is to send you money - lets say the car is selling for $4500. They send you a cheque for $6000 to cover 'expenses' and you send them the change via western union or something (notably some format that allows them to get the money easily). You cash the cheque, keep your share, send the money order/transfer for about a thousand back to them. About 1-2 weeks later your bank discovers teh cheque is either a forgery or links to an account with no money in it (and in a false untraceable name/identity) - and you're stuck with not only having to return the money you still have, but also the money you returned to the sender in good faith...Or get charged with fraud/theft.

What really sucks about such scams, aside from the money lost, is that they can lead innocent people into having a criminal record, and making it a nightmare to ever get a loan/mortgage for a house, prevent you from working in certain industries, you name it.

As much as it is tempting to send them a 'firetruck off' response, the less you email them, the better, as then they have less header info, just on the off chance that it is some attempt at identity theft.

Alternately, if you send them pictures, you might find 'your' car advertised for sale for a too good to be true price elsewhere. Basically there they try the scam in reverse - they have no car to deliver, but come up with some story about being able to ship it, or alternately they owned it as an overseas student, so the car is in your country, but they have returned home to theirs and are selling it, so you send them the money, and the car is to be picked up locally.

I hope all the scammers die in a fire :)

For those with the time and inclination:

http://419eater.com/

Scam the Scammers!!!