My misadventure enters 13th month of trying to find the car at a reasonable price that'd last for me for 10 years.

Lately I've been glancing over gumtree, with Suzuki Vitara catching my eye. 66' plate, with very low 24,000 mileage advertised as a private seller - I though my luck is turning and I've reached out to a gent on other end of the phone line. I thought - worth a short for just over £5k.

Straight to the answering machine, however he did respond to a message, sharing an e-mail that looked like trader's e-mail with a reference number.

Fine. Perhaps just a rushed advertisement was incorrectly labelled. I've quoted my reference number and asked if I can check out the car and have a test drive.

No response on that day (Sunday), and ad eventually disappeared later that day.

Today I received an essay in an e-mail saying the car is still available, they are an online only auction (never in the ad it was mentioned something like this), car is an excellent condition, and they took a video for me. That, and free delivery + 7 days money-back guarantee, 90 days warranty etc. Again, sounds too good to be true.

Clicking the link offers me a "free 7-day premium membership" and what not. And that's where I stopped.

This process is getting dubious and a simple request for a test drive gets ignored, instead I'm getting put in touch with an auction house, for privilege to sign-up for a "free" 7-day membership.

Can I just ask if this is a scam, or a business-as-usual way selling a car these days? Have I perhaps missed any red flags early on this process?