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The Bronco

A case file from Better Business Bureau Connecticut.

Joe, 47 — East Hartford

This story is not real. The names, ages, and details are made up. The scam pattern in it is real and happens in Connecticut every week. Whoever sent this to you sent it so that if it happens to you, you will recognize it.

EPISODE 03 · ONLINE VEHICLE FRAUD

The Bronco

Joe is forty-seven. Newly promoted principal at an East Hartford middle school. Six years from retirement. He has wanted a 1968 Ford Bronco since he was fifteen. Tonight, the internet knows.

NARRATOR: Saturday morning, late September. Joe is on his second coffee. Karen and Lily are at a soccer game on Burnside Avenue. The garage is empty. Joe is on Bring-a-Trailer. He has been on Bring-a-Trailer for forty-five minutes.

NARRATOR: Then he sees it. A 1968 Ford Bronco. Restored. Marquee Bronze paint. Power steering retrofit. Asking $32,000. Market value is closer to $46,000. The seller is in Atlanta. The first message ping arrives in his inbox three minutes after he opens the listing tab.

NARRATOR: The seller's name is Tom. There is one message waiting. Joe is forty-seven years old and his hands are slightly shaking on the trackpad.

What she did: Reply to Tom through the listing platform — Get more info. See where this goes.

NARRATOR: The reply lands within two minutes. His name is Tom. Air Force, stationed at Dobbins. He is being deployed to Kuwait in nine days. The Bronco belonged to his late father. He does not want to sell it but he cannot store it. He will work with Joe on price. He suggests eBay Motors escrow for both their protection.

TOM (Atlanta): "Hey, thanks for reaching out. Listen, I'll be straight with you. I'm in a tough spot. My orders came through last Friday — Kuwait, eighteen months. The Bronco belonged to my dad, and my mom can't drive a stick anymore. I need to move it before I deploy. I'm not trying to get top dollar. I just need it to go to someone who'll take care of it. eBay Motors has an escrow service that protects both of us. You like the truck, you do the wire, the truck ships, eBay holds the money until you sign for it. Deal?"

What she did: Agree. Tell Tom to send the escrow link. — Move forward. Use the protection.

NARRATOR: Tom sends the escrow link in a text. The page loads in Joe's browser. Logo. Familiar layout. eBay's signature blue. The URL bar reads: ebay-motors-secure-checkout.com.

What she did: Open a new tab and type ebaymotors.com manually — Compare the two sites side by side.

You typed it manually.

Two tabs, two URLs, one obvious answer.

Joe opened a new tab and typed ebaymotors.com. The page loaded. Different fonts. Different navigation. No 'Secure Checkout' subdomain. He flipped between the two tabs. The site Tom sent was a near-miss — slightly off colors, slightly different footer, a URL one hyphen and a few words away from the real thing. He did not pay anything. He did not even reply to Tom. He closed the browser. He went outside and raked the yard. He told Karen at dinner that someone had tried to scam him on a truck. She said: 'Good thing you noticed.' He never told her about the manual URL trick because it sounded like he was bragging.

What this case teaches

Phishing-domain detection in 2026 is a five-second habit: open the brand's site in a new tab, type the URL manually, compare side by side. The fake one is always a near-miss.
Scammers buy domains like 'company-secure' or 'company-support' that look right at a glance. The differences are visible only with two browsers side by side.
You don't have to be a tech expert to spot a fake domain. You have to be a person willing to open one extra tab.

What to do next

Make the 'manual URL in a new tab' your reflex before paying anything online. Then forward the off-brand domain to BBB Scam Tracker — BBB CT aggregates the reports and passes them to the registrars who take the sites down. Your one report often is what crosses the threshold.