Online car fraud has become very popular on car auction listings. Much of this online car fraud is from overseas. Don’t rely on the seller’s country of origin or feedback as profiles are bought and sold over the internet. Someone from oversees can easily use a bought or even stolen Ebay profile with great feedback to attract unsuspecting buyers. They copy some photos from the internet and put an unbelievably “great” price on the listing to make a quick dollar on naïve car buyers.
Here are some sign of possible online car fraud.
1) Poor English throughout the listing description.
2) Fraudulent escrow services. (See if there is any contact information available and try to contact them).
3) Emails that don’t go through Yahoo or Ebay Auctions. Many of these fraudulent transactions occur because someone emails a bidder that is not the winning bidder and tells them that is the winning one. Note that all Ebay transactions will have winning bidder notifications through the Ebay email system.
4) Also watch out for fraudulent promises. Car salespeople at car dealerships are notorious for this. Make sure the car has the warranty you desire and do not believe the salesperson until you see everything in writing.
5) Inspections and Emissions. Whether the car can pass inspection in your state or not is rather important since every state has its own inspection and emission requirements. It is possible that a car has somehow passed an inspection in one state but cannot pass it in another.
6) Undisclosed flood and frame damage. Unscrupulous car dealers are selling crashed cars and flood cars without properly listing damages and repairs.
So, to avoid online auto scams be careful and do your homework. For further questions concerning this issue contact our experienced car attorney.
When it comes to buying cars online, you must keep in mind that non-payment/delivery of goods sold or bought—whether from online auctions or not—is the most common cybercrime as reported to the IC3 in 2010, and by all accounts occurs about 25,000 times each month, and it is not surprising then that you can easily be scammed.
However, you can protect yourself.
A very good friend of mine was seriously scammed late last year and has since done extensive research into how you defend yourself against scammers and fraudsters. She reports that she found the solution.
These days she INSISTS on using a legitimate online escrow service for transactions of value. It’s amazing, she tells me, how fast the scammers scramble for the hills when you refuse to listen to reasons why you shouldn’t use this service (bona fide) but instead use another (fraudulent). It’s like a litmus test, she says, it really exposes the scammers.
Her new motto is: When in doubt–escrow. She swears by it.
But, how do you tell the legitimate escrow site from the fraudulent?
First of all, the legitimate site is always secure, and therefore will display “https” (for secure http) on your browser’s URL line. If the site does not, abandon it. Also, the legitimate site will post a physical address and a working phone number, allowing you to talk directly to the staff.
The legitimate site will always display their licenses and accreditations, which you can then verify with the applicable state(s), and they can and will, on request, give you names and contacts of satisfied customers, whom you can then call to verify legitimacy.
Shoot, so that’s that one spupesos.
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