You hate to see this, but a listing on craigslist claims that a 1966 Chevrolet Corvette needs to find a new home, and quickly, due to an illness in the family. The listing doesn’t offer many details, aside from explaining that the Corvette belongs to the seller’s father who has fallen ill and will not complete the restoration of this desirable four-speed convertible with factory hard top. The asking price seems too good to be true, listed at just $13,500 here on craigslist in Omaha.
The listing has been up for a few days, too, which is also surprising considering the price. According to Hagerty, a Corvette of the same year and spec with the 427 engine is valued at $43,000 in “Fair” condition, so even allowing for some fairly significant issues, there’s a pretty wide gulf between the asking price and the lowest value Hagerty will assign. While we’ve all heard of fire sales due to unforeseen events, this seems like a bigger discount than necessary – and makes it all the more surprising the ad has been posted for 11 days.
The interior appears complete, but we’ve only got one photo to go on. The buckets are there, the door panels are intact with armrests and window cranks, and the center console doesn’t appear to have been disassembled in any way. The manual gearbox makes this one even more tempting, though the seller doesn’t provide any info about clutch operation or whether the transmission is numbers-matching. The listing claims they need to sell the car ASAP, so perhaps it’s already gone – or there could be some ugliness lurking underneath the Corvette that’s scaring buyers way, but if that is the case, it’s not obvious in the pictures.
And even the engine looks complete. Really, if the engine turns out to be matching, there’s enough positives just in the four photos and succinct listing to justify picking up the phone. The big question will be if there’s frame rust underneath, as Corvettes of this vintage can suffer from corrosion in places that need be as structurally sound as possible. Even with that risk, this seems like a great deal for a project-grade 427 car with a factory hard top – which also adds a few grand to the final value tally. Does this seem too good to be true, or do you see obvious flaws here that would otherwise justify the low price?
It a scam please remove. Google the VIN.
Where do you see the VIN posted?
This is a scam, the photos are from a sale eight years ago from a classic barn find.
Hi I may have been scammed on this car, can you call me or give more info?
Thanks, Karl 330-620-3302
Call your local police or sheriff’s department immediately. If you sent any payment through the US Mail, call the US Postal Inspection Service. Unfortunately if you sent them any form of cash, gift cards, Western Union payment or any type of cash payment, it probably can’t be recovered.
I fell for this and flew to Denver to buy it. What a fool!
Send payment in gift cards.
Gift cards are the same as cash, once they are out of your possession you no control over them if they are cashed and there is no way to trace who actually cashed them. You may be able to cancel the card if it has not been cashed if you have all the information for the card and call the card issuer immediately.
For more information, read this.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/paying-scammers-gift-cards
https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2020/01/09/why-gift-card-fraud-is-growing-and-why-the-scammers-are-so-hard-to-fight/
Scam. No way someone is so stupid to sell a ‘66 427 for $13.5K – and it’s still available. Delete post!
If I get my money from my dead relative in Ghana, or the lottery I won in the EU then I can buy those gift cards and get a great deal on this Vette
That’s hilarious, but April Fools is still a full two months away!!!
This is a scam, same people with the 58 and 59 Impala’s, which are also scams.
Even in this shape, this car is worth north of $25,000. Total scam. This guy doesn’t even know what he has. That is a non stock color for 66, only green that year was Mosport Green, which is 100 times lighter than this car. I don’t see any VIN here. Total red flag. Move on.
Been running this bogus CL ad for weeks in Florida too:
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https://orlando.craigslist.org/cto/d/mascotte-1966-corvette-scam/7258478776.html
They’ve been running this bogus ad here in Florida too. This guy calls them out.
https://orlando.craigslist.org/cto/d/mascotte-1966-corvette-scam/7258478776.html
Is it April 1st already? This is seriously uhh unbelievable..gotta be a scam.
Today only…I will throw in a free bridge.
I thought you said “fridge”, then I cleaned my glasses…
This is a SCAM!!! I sold the car 8 years ago, I was the one who found it, and these are my pics from the Original sale. Car went to California, these people have scammed over $100k++++ from untold amount of people in total, the FBI knows who is doing but is to lazy to get off their butts to go pick them up!!!!
You are correct! Big time scam and you are also correct that nothing has been done since here it is again at last 5 year’s now since I saw it posted previously!
Beverly Hills car dealer had the car listed on eBay the same time it was listed on Craigslist.
Crome valve covers not correct.
Yes. This is a scam. Has been on CL in Orlando for months.
https://orlando.craigslist.org/cto/d/mascotte-1966-corvette-scam/7258478776.html
Is the trailer come with it?
no it’s not a scam i purchased a few days ago & IT RUN’S GOOD !
lol
Send me more pics with vin tag in place and a pic of vin tag
Total scam dont look right
Posting deleted
I flagged the Craig’s list ad.
So what’s the scam?
Map shows Texas?
There are loads of scams like this on CL and FB Marketplace. Rare cars priced at junk value. It’s obvious. The scam is you have to send them payment or a large deposit first before they will provide you with a location or address to come see the car. Naturally, there is no car at that location or address.
Red flag. Ain’t fooling anyone. Scam sh*thead seller. Similar goings on with “clean Low mileage Harleys” on fakebook messager from time to time. Like an $800 pristine condition ’08 9500 mile Dyna…and this thing is listed in locations all around the state. BOGUS RIPOFF SCUMBAGS
It’s currently listed on eBay in Louisville, Ky. The guy wanted us to send $1k via PayPal
The scam is the seller gets you to send them a deposit, but then disappears after you give them $. The fact that it’s also posted in Florida with the SAME PICTURES is proof it’s a scam. This is the oldest scam on the internet. I’ve seen it done with ads for ‘French Bulldogs’ (or any in demand, expensive dog), and with Guns (Glocks especially).
I told one French Bulldog I had a friend in the area and he was willing to meet them in person to give cash. They stopped responding.
There are apps that allow you to get a virtual phone number, so then can even get multiple phone numbers.
I emailed them and will report back what they say. No way it’s still available this long. Where I live, good deals posted on Craigslist for desirable or collectible items are sold within less than 1 hour. I’ve missed out on several, low priced Suzuki Samurai’s because there were 3 people ahead of me. I missed a Toyota FJ55 last week, even though I have alerts set. CNC machines, the list is endless.
I get contacted by scammers almost everytime I list something on Craigslist.
I now give them the address of the local FBI office to send their fake cashiers checks too.
When they ask if I’ve received the check my reply is “One of our agents will be in touch shortly.”
Typical Craigslist scam. List almost anything with a ridiculous low price, like Corvettes, classic cars, Kubota tractors, RV’s, Jeeps, Suzuki Samurais, even a LS1 engine. Like Stephen says, the list is endless! You name it, I’ve seen them all and flag everyone I see. When I sell something on Craigslist, I tell them I only take phone calls, no texts or emails and they have to come see it in person. You can weed out the scammers pretty quick that way. On their call I get their name and phone number so I can do a little research on the internet and find out who they are and if they are real. If its a fake VoIP (voice over internet protocol) call I can figure that out pretty quickly. The rule here is “If it sounds too good to be true, it usually isn’t!”.
One time I sold my clean, lowered 1999 Chevy Crew Cab short box big block powered pickup and I had advertised it on Ebay and Craigslist. One day about two years later a guy calls and asks if I had sold it because it had been advertised in a local paper in North Dakota for half of what I was asking! He had found my phone number in the pics and called me and said the person that was trying to sell it to him told him “She was on a research ship in the Pacific so he would have to send her payment and she would have the truck delivered to him!” I still get calls because it’s still out there on the internet on websites that harvest ads from Ebay and relist them as a middleman.
Here it is five years later and it’s still out there:
https://www.smartmotorguide.com/L51903338
Another time a few years ago I saw a Suzuki Samurai listed for sale in Las Vegas for a low price. I already had a nice one but this was a good deal. They are the finest small 4WD ever made, they are all over the world and I’ve had three of them and they will humiliate a lot of 4WD’s and run forever. The seller communicated by text and story was it was that she, the mother was selling it because it had belonged to her deceased son. It went like that until I said I was coming over to look at it, since I was just a four hour drive away. Quickly the reply was that “she needed a down payment first before I could see it”. So then I texted “How is the weather in Nigeria today?”. Then I got a text from him with a few “FU’s” and that “He and his boys were coming to mess me up!” I texted him back and said “Please do come out to South Dakota, we own lots of guns out here and there aren’t many people, so we’ll see you coming from a long ways off!” I then texted him “that I was a retired FBI agent and my hobby was tracking down punks like him!”. That got me a bunch more “FU”s”, so then I kept going and texted him “I have a buddy in the CIA and they have a Predator drone looking down at him right now, so keep looking up for what’s coming his way!”. I never heard from him again. I really enjoyed that one.
My latest was about 6 months ago, it was a LS1 engine and trans for $2600, again over in Las Vegas. It was a New York number and I talked to a younger gal on the phone who said it belonged to her brother and she was selling it for him because he was deceased (I see a pattern here!). I told her I was nearby and would come and do the deal in person since I was close by. She said that was fine but that I needed to send her $60 so she could take an Uber across town and meet me at the storage garage where it was. She wanted me to send her the money through an app to her phone and suggested two different apps to use. As I talked to her I Googled them on my laptop and saw they were very susceptible to fraud so I told her I was an old guy that didn’t do any of that newfangled stuff and the only way I do things is with a US Postal Money Order (that’s mail fraud and it get’s the Postal Inspectors involved, I know the laws because I worked there). She called me back again and said she would do it and I said I would need her address but then she chickened out and I never heard from her again. Later I saw a guy had posted her ad and said she had scammed him!
from a reader ad “The green 66 C2 corvette is a scam, called the classic car dealer in the background and they sold the car years back. Seller claims to be in Texas and trys to get you to Zelle him a deposit then you never hear from him again. Dont call for it, $50k car.”
simple greed, on both sides. Criminal scumbag seller scamming people and greedy buyers hoping for a score. You deserve each other.
You’d think any self-respecting scam artist would was the car and make it more desirable. :)
Isn’t that the corvette they found the dead body in!!
Stephen made me laugh, missed out on low priced Suzuki Samurais? They were junk new and still are. Underpowered 1.3 Liter, hollow crankshaft, unreliable transmission, rusted apart in 3 years flat. The only thing good about them is they were cheap and usable to haul our gear down the trail to camp and back. Good riddance to them.
my ole good bud just got scammed 4 =17.8 k lst week yup FBI HAS THE CASE. so what. ,look at “trovit.com” xke’s are cheaper than that vette some under 10k ,you better be smart keep your cash in pocket till ya see it & have a Glock under your seat just to be safe ,it’s a scammers world out there ,this is one vette that is getting a lot of attention ,hope they get HAMMERED
There’s a lot of low priced Vette’s and other collectable cars on CL – seems the asking price is always below $20,000 for really nice cars.
This has been a scam for at least two years……
Yes it is a scam this car has been used as a scam for many years! I believe I’ve saved this scammers ID he actually sent it to me if in fact it was his? I would post his ID if pics allowed.
My brother-in-law found a 911 on Ebay that was supposedly in Germany. He was going to send me to Germany to pay for it and bring it back. He never asked me if I wanted to do that!
In the listing was a palm tree. I told the seller, it must be in the tropical portion of Germany. Never got a response and obviously never went.
He sent me pictures of Vin tag and title it was a Virginia title he told me the car was in Fort Lauderdale what I told him I would be there in 9 hours he would not answer me