Garage owner sells 105 cars illegally on Leboncoin

It's not uncommon to find stolen items listed for sale on the Leboncoin website. In the Eure region of France, a 37-year-old man succumbed to this temptation by illegally reselling a total of 105 vehicles that belonged to customers of his garage or to rental agencies. As a result, he was banned from working as a garage mechanic and from running a business.

Garage owner and his partner complicit in Leboncoin private individual scam

Generally speaking, people don't mistrust their garages. They play an important role in the maintenance and repair of our vehicles. However, the customers of this 37-year-old garage owner in Nonancourt, Eure, should have been wary of him. They could never have imagined that he was practising his trade illegally. He is accused of illegally reselling 105 vehicles belonging to his garage customers on the Leboncoin classified ads website. The 37-year-old was recently sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a €5,000 fine for carrying out illegal activities in his garage. He will be able to serve his sentence at home with an electronic bracelet.

The garage owner's partner, who was his accomplice in the case, received an eight-month suspended prison sentence for two years and a fine of €1,500. Both individuals are banned from continuing to work in the garage and must work to compensate the victims of this case.

Missing vehicles and altered registration documents

In order to resell vehicles on Leboncoin, the garage owner and his partner stole vehicles belonging to the garage's customers as well as to rental agencies. Some customers saw their vehicles disappear, while others had the name on their vehicle registration papers changed to that of the garage owner's partner. But that's not all. Some cars were found abandoned and sometimes in very poor condition.

The fraudster was deregistered as a garage mechanic in 2014. As he was no longer on the commercial register, he was working illegally without declaring his activity. Thanks to the RSA and other social benefits he was able to receive during this period, the fraudster was able to accumulate a total of €300,000.

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There are a lot of scams on sites selling ads to private individuals, such as Leboncoin, Facebook and Vinted, so it's important to be vigilant. Many methods of payment between individuals should be avoided on these platforms, such as payment by cheque or in cash, as these are very popular with scammers. To avoid any scams between private individuals, we advise you to use Obvy, the benchmark payment method for your transactions of goods and services by hand and by delivery.

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