I’m absolutely appalled by how much internet fraud is out there. It is advised to look into the common online scams, just so if you ever happen to fall victim of this, you’ll at least have an idea of what to do. We have been in the market for buying a new car for the last two months, and I would say that I’ve been hit with about four different internet fraud sellers. Luckily I haven’t fallen for their tactics and actually I’ve felt like I’ve become an expert in spotting a scam. So, I would like to share what I have learned so you don’t fall into their traps:
- If the price is just too good to be true and they are basically giving the car away, it’s most likely fraud.
- Usually a scammer only communicates through email, and they will list a fake number or fax number or their voice mailbox is full, etc so you have to contact them through email. There are many websites that can help educate you on email scams, visit this post for more insight because it’s probably the best one that I found.
- If they say they are from a foreign country, and they can’t sell the car in the country they live in so that’s why they are selling it so cheap in the US—it’s fraud and they probably live down the street from you.
- The car is located somewhere else and they have to ship it to you, but you have to pay for it first and the seller confirms it is in good condition–it’s fraud.
- Never use an escrow service that the seller recommends and DON’t send any money using Western Union.
Buying a car is very time consuming and frustrating and it’s so sad to see something so good, oh so fake. Find out more car fraud tips here. If you have bought a car online from a garage that does online advertisements and it’s turned out that you have a lemon which is defective and doesn’t work well or has many issues, you may be able to hire yourself an attorney to take the person or company who sold it to you to court for selling a car that was miss-advertised.
