2 Aussies buying a motorhome to travel Europe

[CathyMac]

Whilst we have been investigating the Las Palmas motorhome we are interested in, we have been looking elsewhere too and found one of interest on the leboncoin site in France. Unfortunately we are unable to register on the site as we not from the countries they list as acceptable.

Does anyone know if there is any way to get around this or how I can contact a seller on that site by other means? I have tried searching for that motorhome with the area it is from to see if they have listed it for sale on another site but nothing came up.

Thanks Widge. We have told them we have decided to come to Gran Canaria (when our Societe Civile has been established in France) to inspect the vehicle and they have replied 'OK'. I can not fault their replies to numerous emails but of course that is how a scammer hooks you and reels you in.

Barrie on this forum lives on Gran Canaria and he is kindly doing some sleuthing for us. Firstly we just want to be sure the company actually exists physically. If that turns out OK we can move to the next step.

I have checked their address on 'Google Earth' and there appears to be a company with a similar name in that location so I have used their 'contact us' email from their website to see if they sell vehicles as it only mentions they are a mechanical workshop. Will be interesting to see what comes back if anything. Sophisticated scammers could create a website using information provided by a legitimate setup to suit their scam.

It's an interesting journey!

Widge I am sending you a direct message

 

[eurajohn]

I live in France and have a Leboncoin account, if you DM me the details of the van I'll try to get the answers you want.
I don't think there is a direct work around for the security of Lebocoin as you have to send the message to the web page they then provide your questions to the seller who then sends you a reply via Leboncoin. John

 

[ChrisL]

But for a free online app duo lingo isn't bad.

I've been doing Duo lingo for a while and also Memrise, I think Memrise is more everyday conversational kind of words and even includes some expressions that might be considered profane but that you might hear someone say in the course of a conversation.

 

[CathyMac]

Hi everyone!
Well we imported a motorhome to Australia back in 2020 an now live in it full time, following the weather and travelling our vast country.
A short time ago we realised that being 70ish we realistically (if health holds out) have 10 years for overseas travel.
We decided the motorhome lifestyle is definitely for us. We love having our home travel with us. No more booking into accom by a certain time and transferring clothes etc in then decamping in the morning.
So, this led us to look at buying a LHD motorhome in France. We are in the process of setting up a company (Societe Civile) which will purchase the motorhome. We will be the only shareholders of the company. We can get insurance and the accountant completing the procedure will provide his address as the company address any mail can be sent to them.
The next step is to purchase a French registered vehicle so save a lot of mucking around. This led us to a very nice vehicle in Las Palmas. We are seriously looking at visiting Las Palmas after Christmas when our Societe Civile has been established.
We have a quote to transport the vehicle back to Spain on the continent.
We intend posting this following question when our subcription to Motorhome Fun has been processed.
The motorhomes located in Las Palmas are ridiculously inexpensive compared to UK and the continent.
Does anyone know why this is the case?
Cathy & Iain

Just an update for everyone's information!

We were very interested in a motorhome listed for sale in Las Palmas. Nice looking motorhome at an excellent price.

A member of this forum (Barrie) lives in Gran Canaria and on the 20th he kindly visited the 'supposed' car yard that had it listed.

He has just reported back that the whole thing is a scam. Yes the business exists but it is a mechanics workshop and they do not sell motorhomes or vehicles. The owner told Barrie that he had his identity stolen some time ago and has been trying to get it sorted but with no luck.

The 'thieves' have a believable website showing a number of vehicles for sale. Here is the website
https://automocion-medina.es/ if you are interested.

I have had a number of email exchanges with the 'Sales Manager' going by the name 'Tomas Martin'. Hopefully I have given him a lot of false hope as we were quite keen.

Fortunately no money has changed hands and we are very grateful to Barrie who has exposed this scam.

I have sent back a scathing email which will probably be water off a duck's back to the likes of these people.

Just proved this adage "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is!"

Thanks to all the people who replied to my initial post.

 

[Peavy]

Sorry for you, I hope you find the right van. This kind of scams are sadly very common nowadays. Some people have even found their own van for sale in fake adverts in FB or wherever.
Good job Barriesimpson

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