Don’t get taken by online car sales scams
Larry Hoover has bought a lot of cars — sight unseen — off the ebay auction website over the years and never had a major problem. “It never crossed my mind that they’d try to defraud me,” he said.
And then the Phoenix-area resident made a deal with a South Florida used car dealership that advertised a 2002 Cadillac El Dorado as being in perfect mechanical condition. The dealer persuaded Hoover to wire the $6,500 purchase price directly to him so he could avoid seller fees charged by ebay and Paypal.
Now, Hoover has a major problem. He has no El Dorado and no $6,500. And he has no buyer’s protection from ebay.
“It’s made me very gun-shy about buying a car online,” he said.
Experts say all consumers should be gun-shy about online vehicle purchases.
Online vehicle scams are flourishing in the age of COVID-19, according to a recent study by the Better Business Bureau.
Investigators have identified two primary types of online car sales scams.
One of the most common is orchestrated by criminals, typically tied to Romanian organized crime syndicates, who post fake car listings on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, ebay Motors and other sites and persuade victims to wire money for cars, motorcycles, ATVS, RVS and boats that don’t exist.
The Better Business Bureau’s Southeast Florida and Caribbean division identified 39 companies that defrauded at least 69 victims out of $866,000 last year, according to a bureau study released in September.
Product not as listed
The other type of scam involves actual dealers who post listings that misrepresent vehicles as “pristine” or “in perfect running order.”
What the buyer receives is anything but perfect. They turn out to be rebuilt vehicles that have been in crashes, delivered in nonrunning condition, stripped of important components, sold with nontransferable titles or are completely different from the ones pictured in listings.
In several recent lawsuits filed in Broward County, Fla., out-of-state buyers described transactions with South Florida dealers that turned into nightmares:
• An Illinois man paid a Hollywood dealer $83,574 for a Mclaren luxury car advertised on ebay as “in excellent mechanical condition.” When the car was delivered, he found the check-engine light illuminated, evidence of body work, different paint between the fenders, roof and front doors, frame damage and ill-fitting doors.
• A New York man paid the same dealer $9,699 for a 2005 Mercedes-benz Sl-class 500 Roadster also listed on ebay as “in excellent mechanical condition.” When it arrived, the trunk was stripped of all hardware, including the fasteners holding the taillights to the chassis. The retractable roof was stuck in the open position, and the dashboard video display did not work.
• A California man paid a different South Florida dealer $30,000 for a 2019 Ram van advertised on ebay as in excellent condition with 8,000 odometer miles. The title arrived branded as “salvage,” signifying it had been in a wreck, with a statement that the odometer did not display actual miles. The van
was a former Amazon delivery vehicle sold at a salvage auction after being wrecked. A repair shop told the buyer it would cost $18,000 to make it roadworthy and safe.
All three buyers contacted the dealers and demanded refunds. The dealers refused, forcing the buyers to hire attorneys and sue for violations of Florida laws that prohibit misrepresenting the condition of vehicles.
No key, no car, no refund
At least those buyers got something for their money. Hoover said he was put through a runaround that left him with nothing.
Shortly after he sent $6,500 for the El Dorado, Hoover received the vehicle title in the mail that revealed “they got it from some police auction,” he said.
After the dealer failed to ship the car as promised, Hoover was told it could not be started because the dealer didn’t have a key to open the driver door. And no one would make the dealer a key because the title was sent to Hoover, the dealer told him. Hoover sent the title back and told the dealer to get it done.
Weeks passed. Finally, after numerous phone calls and text messages,
Hoover told the dealer to keep the car and the title and send him his money back. The dealer refused, and Hoover hired an attorney.
Hoover said the ordeal has left him angry for letting himself get scammed, but the loss hasn’t affected his ability to work or feed his family. And he still drives a Chevrolet Corvette that he bought from a Colorado dealership through ebay with no problem two years ago.
Avoid getting scammed
Attorneys who represent clients with car scam claims urge consumers to protect themselves by following a few simple rules:
• Never agree to send money for cars listed on ebay Motors outside of ebay and Paypal. When buyers do, they lose the right to seek refunds of up to $100,000 through ebay’s Vehicle Protection Program.
• If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. Avoid listings of late-model cars with preposterously low prices.
• Don’t rely on the accuracy of a vehicle history report such as Carfax or Auto Check. Information in those reports can be inaccurate or
may not include recent wrecks.
• Investigate the dealer’s online presence and look for reviews. Don’t accept a 100 percent positive rating on ebay; that could reflect ratings from other ebay merchants who sold the dealer tools or parts. Go to Yelp, Better Business Bureau, scamguard.com and similar sites and look for bad reviews. If a dealer has little or no presence online, that could mean the company has recently changed its name to disassociate itself from multiple negative reviews.
• Spend some money to have the vehicle inspected if you can’t see it personally. Don’t allow the seller to arrange the inspection, and have the inspection report delivered to you.
• Demand to see the title. You’ll be able to determine the previous owner, mileage when last sold and whether the title is branded as salvage or rebuilt.
Hoover says he’ll approach any future online purchases with a healthy paranoia.
“I always thought I’d never fall for a scam,” he said. “No matter how safe you might think the transaction is, or how fraud-savvy you think you are, you can still get scammed.”