OFFICE ADDRESS
The Law Offices of Hovanes Margarian
13425 Ventura Blvd.
Suite 303
Sherman Oaks
CA 91423
818.990.0418
Credit score scam is the most abused scam. This is where the car dealership tells you that your credit score is lower then what it actually is in order to charge you a higher finance rate on your car loan. No one is immune to this scam because the dealership doesn’t care if you have good or bad credit when they attempt to con you. To get a solution out of this the only best way to deal with this greediness is to bring a copy of your credit score with you when you go looking to buy a new car. Another favorite scam is the forced warranty scam …
Categories: General Articles
Tags: car dealership, Credit score scam, dealer markup fee, forced warranty scam
When you purchase a new automobile it is somehow hard enough without having to deal with the sales pressure from a car salesman. It’s no big secret that almost every car dealership can be talked down on the initial price they want for a car. The important point is to know what scams to look out for in order to maximize your hard earned dollar. A few sales tactics are detailed in this article that you may want to be on the lookout for the next time you purchase a new automobile. The first money wasting scam deals with checking the vehicle’s VIN# on the window. In some cases …
Categories: General Articles
•Buyers of any used vehicle have the responsibility of detecting scams before they end up being scammed. • Stock to the age-old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” In the case of a used car, if the price seems too good for what you are getting, you could be facing scammed. • You better check that the name on the driver license of the seller is consistent and corresponds with that of the title of the car. In case you are purchasing a car on the internet, the seller should provide clear scanned images of both documents. If the names do not match, …
States have agents assigned to thwart curbstoning, but there are not enough agents to do this job because they have other duties to attend to. Because of this, there are very few sanctions against curbstoners. Criminal convictions are minimal. States can reprimand licensed dealers who engaged in curbstoning, but even this is not enough. eBay auction website has also employed methods to combat curbstoning. eBay will suspend any account holder and cooperate with law enforcement. What happens many times, however, is that once an account is suspended, the crooked sellers simply open up a new user id and re-engage in crooked sales. If you are in the marketing for …
Categories: General Articles
There are ads claiming that no matter what condition you trade is in, they’ll give you $1500, $2000, or even $3000 for it in trade. Foolish people flock in. Some even drive off with a new or used car. They were paid $3,000 for their 1983 Chevette and they feel like they just ripped somebody off. The truth is that they probably just got ripped off. Most car dealers have around $2000 to $2500 worth of markup built into the price of their lower end vehicles and more (sometimes much more) built into their higher priced ones. When they put on their Push, Pull, or Drag sale, all they …
Categories: General Articles
Tags: lower end vehicles, or Drag sale, Pull, Push
This is great one for traffic. Many dealers claim that if they can’t beat a deal, they’ll give you $10,000. They might as well say they’ll give you $10,000,000, because it isn’t going to happen either way. When it comes to new vehicles, the market is impossibly competitive. 95% of new car dealers will match the price than any other dealer gives on an exact same vehicle. But not all of them guarantee the claim with money, simply because they don’t want to insult the intelligence of the consumer. The bad part is, not all consumers are intelligent enough to recognize that unless another dealer is willing to lose more …
Categories: General Articles
Tags: new vehicles
Auto dealers sometimes pretend to be private sellers when selling their cars and this practice is called curbstoning. Most dealers engaged in this practice are used car dealers. This is a good way to sell cars of substandard quality to unsuspecting buyers. If there is a street or parking lot near your residence where there are several cars up for sale then there is a possibility that these cars are placed in public view by “curbstoners.” Car dealers could not sell many of these cars on their lots as curbstoned vehicles may be lemons or junk cars. Often this technique is used by car dealers as a way to …
Categories: FAQ
Tags: curbstoned vehicles, curbstoners, Curbstoning, junk cars, lemons
Though there are no laws that require a dealer to check a car over before selling it, the buyer’s guide states that the car is supposed to have a post on the window stating if the car has a warranty or is sold “As Is.” The car dealer is supposed to offer a consumer to sign a copy of the Buyer’s Guide and give the car buyer a copy of it. If the car buyer have signed the Buyer’s Guide and have a copy of it the buyer will probably have no recourse, because the dealer can say it was posted on the car and no fraud occurred. The …
Categories: FAQ
Tags: as-is, Buyer's Guide, dealer fraud case, Fraud, victim of dealer fraud
VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) cloning has become one of the most fast growing national problems. How does VIN cloning occur? VIN cloning occurs when the VIN of a stolen vehicle is replaced with the VIN of a similar vehicle. Car thieves usually get the VINs from the Internet, car lots or parked cars. Later they forge tags and stickers with the “clean” VIN and place them on stolen cars. After this they sell vehicles to individuals or car dealers. As the states don’t share this type of information with one another the thieves manage to easily get away. They get a VIN in one state and after placing it …
Categories: General Articles
Tags: scam, stolen cars, stolen vehicle, vehicle history, VIN cloning, VIN Cloning Scams
Sometimes we come across ads by dealerships promising Zero Down, Zero Percent Financing and No Payments for six months on new car purchases and car dealers spend millions of dollars on this each year. At first this sounds like a good deal. However, you should know that this is simply a scam. Approximately 10% of those that apply for zero percent interest car loans actually get approved. The reason is the law credit score. Eventually, when you get approved for the zero interest auto loan it turns out to be a very short term loan (24 to 36 months). Your monthly payments in this case will be really high. …
Categories: General Articles
Tags: Monthly Payments, scam, Zero Down, zero percent interest car loans, zero-percent financing
