A conman car dealer duped unwitting customers into buying potentially dangerous vehicles with forged service histories in an eBay scam.
Sanjay Raja, 49, who was jailed for 12 months, even kept a supply of bogus rubber stamps from non-existent garages to falsify entries for maintenance and repairs – to add credence to his lies.
Six of the vehicles sold, with the mileage clocks turned back, became faulty or broke down on the day, or shortly after, being purchased.
Raja posed as a private seller and not a trader. When purchasers complained or asked for a refund, he became irate and rebuffed them with threats of legal action or violence, telling one couple he would "rip your heads off," Leicester Crown Court was told.
Raja admitted five counts of fraudulently making false representations to the purchasers of four Ford Mondeos and a Ford Fiesta as well as using a false instrument, a forged service book for the same Ford Fiesta. He pleaded guilty to having articles for use in fraud namely rubber stamps bearing the names of four non-existent car repair centres, in August 2014.
Raja admitted to going on to commit a sixth false-representation car fraud in December 2015, whilst on bail for the earlier matters.
