With the boom of online commerce, the scams are flourishing. Criminals are no longer limited to using mass-market vehicles as bait. Even with heavy trucks, for example, buyers and sellers are being swindled by digital tricks. Currently, MAN Truck & Bus is raising awareness about fraudulent online activities related to its trucks. In recent weeks and months, several cases have come to light in Germany where customers and interested parties have been deliberately involved in shady dealings when buying new and used vehicles. "Unfortunately, in some cases, the fraud attempts have been successful," reports the Munich-based company.
In this scam, the perpetrators pose as MAN sales representatives or even members of the management on digital sales platforms - MAN cites mobile.de, which itself provides advice against fraud on its website, as an example.
"It is made to appear as if the vehicles are being offered by MAN - often at particularly favorable prices. These are deliberate fraud attempts."
MAN tries to protect customers and partners
Dennis Affeld,
chairman of the management board of MAN Truck & Bus Germany, wants to counter these trends by raising public awareness and urging customers and partners to be particularly cautious:
"Even if we can't completely prevent certain fraud scenarios, awareness is the crucial step. We urge our customers and partners to be more vigilant and to pay careful attention, especially when receiving payment requests or unusual communication methods."
For customers who have already been harmed, the truck manufacturer expresses its regret. It advises affected parties to contact the police. "MAN has already taken legal action."
Protective measures for MAN customers
MAN provides four tips to help recognize fraud cases:
- MAN primarily uses its domain @man.eu. Divergent email addresses are generally a sign of forgery.
- For incomprehensible invoices or payment requests, the known MAN contact person should preferably be contacted directly and by phone.
- Original invoices are never forwarded to the recipient through intermediaries. If such an invoice is "sent via third parties or unverified communication channels," it is
- certainly a fraud.
- In the case of email contact, always carefully examine the full sender address, not just the name.
If a fraud attempt is suspected, MAN advises contacting the police and the responsible salesperson directly. MAN has posted a list of all its authorized MAN dealers by sales regions in Germany online.
Flourishing online traps
Online fraud has long been a problem for online business. With the growing digital offerings, more fake shops, forged emails with harmful links, and dubious payment requests emerge, becoming more creative and unscrupulous. Even though consumer protection advocates assure that the vast majority of appearances are trustworthy, they repeatedly warn of caution based on experience.
To regain lost ground in online business, efforts are being made to identify reputable providers with quality seals or to establish particularly secure payment methods. However, "even on legitimate platforms, scammers are on the move." And these criminals keep finding crooked ways to get money. Typically, they lure with particularly popular products at unbeatable prices. The
customer is then asked, for example, to pay in advance and waits in vain for the goods. The consumer center has created a website with advice in case of fraud.
The purchase and sale of vehicles over the internet are also becoming increasingly straightforward – the diversity of web-based vehicle transactions also serves as a playground for online fraud, and ADAC has been warning for some time against offers that are too inexpensive. Together with the police and online trading platforms, the auto club has launched the initiative "Safe Car Buying on the Internet" (Isak) to inform consumers on how best to protect themselves when buying or selling cars online. At ADAC, the top advice is: "do not make advance payments." The ADAC website also provides a downloadable PDF with a checklist for buying used cars. The European Consumer Center Germany also offers tips against online traps when buying vehicles.
Now, attacks apparently increasingly target vendors of high-priced specialized products meant for a rather limited group of
