Watch out for the ad on the community bulletin board that says “cars for sale by owners.” It would be wise to read the entire ad to determine if it is really legitimate. People who offer used cars for sale by dealers and those listings that claim to be cars for sale by owners are often unreliable.
About eight months ago, I was shopping for a used car. I found a very useful and effective category, “cars for sale by owners,” on Craigslist, the most wonderful of the free online community bulletin boards. However, all I found were attractive deals that I couldn’t afford, affordable deals that included cars with no motor and no receipts. There were also no responses after I did my best to visit the owners, test drive and check the vehicle, and call back when requested with an offer.
I also found ads that were clearly for cars and trucks offered by a dealer and confirmed by the dealer’s business information. However, he was suspicious because an ad for a Chevy truck from the ’70s had contact information that includes four phone numbers and a clearly misspelled detail. To make matters worse, I found separate listings for a Ford F-250, a Chevy Nova, and a list of two commuter cars that had the same contact information, those same four phone numbers, and that same distinctively misspelled detail, after that i did. a search of over 1,000 cars for sale by owners.
I’m sure the guy behind those ads was fraudulent. Cars and trucks existed and photographs were presented to them. However, the background in each of the photos was the same and the contact information and details were the same as well. This means that the alleged cars for sale by the owners were actually listed in the wrong place intentionally, by a guy who wanted the benefits of a used car dealer but didn’t want to pay taxes.
Obviously this person was not very smart because he used the same identifiable information and just tore it up on cars for sale by owners. He wasted the time and energy of serious buyers because of his actions. It also gave the already dubious characters in the used car business a more negative identity.