A farmer has warned others to be vigilant after he lost €1,000 to an online tractor selling scam.

The money was paid to a man purporting to be a Dutch machinery dealer who said he transported tractors to Ireland regularly.

The Cork-based farmer connected with the alleged machinery dealer at the end of October through an ad on Facebook Marketplace selling a Ford 5610 with front linkage and a PTO.

The ad was in Dutch. The farmer translated it and contacted the seller. They had several conversations on the phone and on WhatsApp.

The tractor was to cost €4,500 plus €1,080 to transport it to the farmer’s yard.

This was subsequently dropped to €3,250 plus the cost of transport in a WhatsApp conversation, seen by the Irish Farmers Journal.

The agreement was that the farmer would pay the cost of transport and then pay the cost of the tractor in full when it arrived.

The farmer said he tried to assess the alleged dealer’s credentials as much as he could on the phone.

“He was telling me he was a dairy farmer in the Netherlands. I asked him about the price of milk. I said, ‘Milk price is bad, isn’t it?’ He said, ‘It is, we’re getting 42c/kg.’ That’s fairly convincing.”

Video

“He said he had tractors going to Ireland all the time. When I asked him where he was sending them to, he said, ‘I’ll have to ring those people before I can tell you because of GDPR’.”

A video of the alleged tractor running was sent to the farmer before he transferred the money.

The Cork farmer was comforted that the alleged machinery dealer had an Irish IBAN. The IBAN given to the farmer is from electronic money institution, Modulr Finance BV, with an address in Dublin.

Transaction

Following a phone call with the alleged machinery dealer, the cost of transport was brought down to €1,000, as that is the maximum amount of money that can be transferred to a new payee on the Bank of Ireland 365 app.

An invoice in Dutch was provided to the farmer and he then sent confirmation that he had transferred the money via an electronic bank statement.

The truck was to leave the day after the money was transferred.

A couple of days later the alleged machinery dealer rang the farmer looking for more money.

“He rang me and said, ‘What warranty have I that I’ll get paid when the tractor comes into the yard?’ The minute he said that I knew it was over.

“What he wanted was for me to send the rest of the money. He wanted me to pay in full,” said the Cork farmer.

The farmer did not pay the money.

Vigilance

He contacted the Gardaí and said he would advise others to be extremely vigilant when buying machinery online.

During COVID-19 the farmer bought a tractor and a diet feeder online from within Ireland.

“Maybe I was getting a bit casual and a bit complacent that this is how it works,” he said.

“The price he had up for the tractor, it wouldn’t have been online for a month [without being sold]. I can see it a mile away now,” the farmer said.

The Irish Farmers Journal contacted the alleged Dutch machinery dealer for comment. When the purpose of the call was explained, he hung up.

The number went straight to voicemail following further calls.