A DEVASTATED family fear they have been scammed out of nearly £6,000 after a car they bought online was not delivered.

Catherine Quinn, 29, and her husband Kevin, 33, of Elterwater Avenue, Workington, thought they had found the perfect car for their young family.

But after they transferred £5,600 to a seller who listed the blue Nissan Juke for sale online, the delivery date passed with no sign of the vehicle.

Now Catherine, Kevin and their sons James, three, and Oliver, one, are worried they have been left thousands of pounds out of pocket. The family said they have reported the incident to Action Fraud, the national fraud and cyber crime reporting centre.

Catherine said: “We are absolutely desperate for a new car and we had spent months looking through cars on various websites and found a car on Auto Trader that we loved.”

As well as being in “constant contact” with the company, the family said they checked business and VAT registration numbers to try to verify the seller was legitimate and looked up testimonials before transferring the money on March 6. Three days after the payment, the car was supposed to be delivered.

“We were obviously excited that we were going to have a family car which would be more spacious for my two children, me and my husband, that was a five-door car instead of our current three-door,” Catherine added.

“I messaged my friend in the morning as I had a gut feeling something was wrong,” Catherine said.

“She and her husband managed to track down the IP address which was based in Russia and she found a Facebook page where someone else had been scammed out of money from the company.

“We are devastated by what’s happened and can’t believe there’s a chance we won’t get the money back.”