Opinion
I won't mention the name of the sites on which we can sell our cars, because fraud can happen on any of them. The sites warn about various types of fraud, such as paying to a PayPal account, or handing over the car in an unsafe location.
Here is the fraud I encountered while selling my previous car. Three times! The first time I thought the buyer was serious, but as our conversation continued, I became suspicious. This was later followed by two more fraudsters using the exact same lines.
A person texted me his interest in my car by asking if it still was available. When I replied in the affirmative, he said he's come by tomorrow to have a look. I was a bit surprised, given his phone number had a Florida area code, but it is not unusual to see cars with Florida licence plates where I live, even though my home is diagonally on the opposite side of the North American continent. As well, I have a couple of friends who regularly buy their used cars in the USA.
Tip: Check the area code of incoming texts and phone calls. If they are not reasonably local, then there is a chance it might be a fraud.
He asked me to get him a car report, to make sure the car was okay. (Services like Carfax report much that is known about the car from public records, such as recalls, accidents, liens, purchase history, and so on.) He suggested I get one from the link he would send me. Here is where I first began to wonder, as the link he sent me redirected to another site.
Tip: Check the syntax of the link with the site selling the car report. If they do not match, then there is a chance it might be fraud.
Nevertheless, I wanted to sell my car, and there are many services selling car reports, so I paid for and downloaded the report. I was surprised that the report said my car had no accidents (it had at least one with a previous owner), no recalls (it had three), and was otherwise clean. But hey, I thought, clean car report, easy sale.
Car report showing no problems with my car, even though it has a history of some problems
The potential buyer was pleased, but then couldn't make time to see the car owing to some problem. He would come by later in the week. Then, he couldn't make it later in the week due to a family emergency in New Mexico.
At this point I began investigating, and I found that the car report firm "located in New York" was owned by a company in North Dakota. I learned that it was not uncommon for fake car reports to be sold by firms, and so I began to take counter measures.
I filed a fraud claim with my credit card company. (Later, they said that since I received a product for my payment, even if it was a fake car report, then there was nothing they could do.) I filed a complaint with the local police department, who accepted it, and provided me with a file number. (Later, the police told me that this was out of their jurisdiction.)
Portion of the accepted police report, with private portions erased
Never mind. I texted that I had reported him to MasterCard and the police, and the fraudster replied with just one word, "What!" I never heard from him again.
In the weeks following, I was approached by text messages by two more fake buyers, one from somewhere the USA and another from Quebec. When each said they would come by the next day to look at the car, I countered that it was not possible, given that they lived on the opposite side of the continent from me. I then blocked them.
I wonder if all this baiting was to just sell fake car reports, or if the fraud would would have gotten worse, had the conversation continued.
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Here is most of the conversation with the first fraudster, with private portions removed. It was about three-quarters of the way through that I had piled up enough suspicions to take action. The other two fraudsters began their texts identically.
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