To tease out whether it was genuine or in fact a dodgy scam from abroad I began to play a little email ping pong with them and as you can see they clearly can't understand this:

On 12 May 2012, at 11:03, Nicholas Bowden wrote:

Hi there, Can you assure me that it's in good state and that i will not be disappointed with it.I'm ready to pay your asking price and to be honest, i wanted to buy this for someone very close to me, but the issue is i am an oceanographer and i do have a contract to go for which starts tomorrow and am leaving any moment from now.The contract is strictly no call due to the lack of reception on the sea area. But I'm able to access email anytime as we will make use of laptop so my only quickest payment option is PayPal as i can send money via PayPal anytime.Since I'm requesting this transaction to be done via PayPal, i will be responsible for all the paypal fee/charges on this transaction and if you don't have an account with paypal its pretty easy, safe and secured to open one.Just log on to www.paypal.com. I hope we can make the purchase as fast as possible? I know someone locally that will come for it once payment clears and they will get it to my son's location safely,So i look forward to hear from you soon.

Hi Nicholas
Where will your friend be coming from to collect the car?
Regards
Marc

On 13 May 2012, at 03:03, Nicholas Bowden wrote:
Send me your paypal email address so as soon as i get it i'll proceed with the payment then after sending the payment you'll get a notification email from paypal stating the pending/status of the money into your account then you can withdraw the money from your account. so get back to me with your paypal email so that i can proceed with the payment at once. We can then make arrangements for collection.

Hi Nicholas

Unfortunately last night someone removed the two rear wheels of the landrover. It doesn't matter though as I have two spare wheels from a tractor which I have fixed to the car. It does mean the car could enter a monster wheels event but this adds to the value of the car in my opinion. In the circumstances would you agree to pay an extra £50 on the agreed price? If you do I can sort through PayPal today?
Regards
Marc

On 14 May 2012, at 12:09, Nicholas Bowden wrote:
Hello,sorry for not getting back to you sooner, I only need your full name with the email address of your paypal account to transfer the fund.and i agree to add the 50 to the payment..

Hi Nicholas

Thanks for that. We've actually had another issue with the car, the tow bar was pulled off the car with the weight of the tractor we were pulling but we've managed to fix it back on with sticky tape, superglue and a couple of screws. It's a bit wobbly but as long as you're not pulling anything heavier than about 1kg I'm sure it will be fine. The tractor wheels we've added to the back have attracted quite a bit of attention and we have been stopped by the police, however they were happy when we told them the car would only be used off road. So as long as you're ok with that I'll let you have my details?

Regards
Marc

On 15 May 2012, at 11:09, Nicholas Bowden wrote:
Hello,that is fine, I only need your full name with the email address of your paypal account to transfer the funds.

Safe to say we haven't done as 'Nicholas' suggested but it does make you wonder how many people could quite easily fall prey to this kind of scam especially if all they ask for is a paypal email. I've googled the person they refer to and he does in fact exist.

I'd welcome any comments from people with similar experiences.