Someone I know responded to a Craigslist add for a loaded 2015 Honda Accord with ~38K miles in great condition for $1,500. They thought the price might be a typo, but the person responding says it’s legit and she is an army medic about to deploy overseas and needs a quick sale. They wrote “title is clear and in my name”.
This does not seem believable. The most obvious possibility is that she has possession of the title and also some false ID with the same name as the titleholder.
In general, is there a way to confirm that this is not some sort of scam?
The whole thing is one massive flag. The story makes no sense - she could drive into any car dealer and get a lot more than $1,500 on the spot.
I’m thinking this seller must have stolen someone’s car and papers, and therefore has title in “her” name.
My relative who is looking for a car found someone listed in the location of the car with the name of the seller, but that person is said to be 70 years old, and is unlikely to be a medic about to deploy overseas. (She tried to call this 70 year old person’s number but it was a wrong number.)
Question is: in the (highly unlikely IMHO) event that this is not a scam, how would one go about ascertaining that? Or is it impossible?
ETA: it does not appear that this person is out of town. In any event, the car is said to be located locally.
There is probably no car. This is a common scam where the seller will ask for the money to be sent and then they say they’ll ship the car to them. The “deploy overseas” is a tactic to make the buyer think they have to act quickly and not look into it too much. If she really needed a quick sale, she could go to CarMax and get a lot more than $1500.
In the non-scam case, you can see the car in person, get the plates, get the VIN, and do some checks that way. CarFax lets you see the history of a car from the VIN. You could also ask to see the title in person and verify the person’s name is on it, but make sure it’s a real title with appropriate embossing rather than just something they printed themselves. When checking the title, make sure the title is does not indicate the car is a salvage or rebuild. Those are typically wrecked cars that people buy from the insurance company and then patch them up enough to sell.
I agree there’s no car. It’s probably a variation on this: OP receives a fake money order for, say, $5000. Seller requests OP deposit the money order and wire back the $3500 difference. By the time the fake MO is discovered, OP has lost the wired money.
Ask for the VIN or license plate number. They probably won’t give it to you, but if they do you can get a CarFax. It’s too obviously a scam though, it would take no effort to get $1500 or more for that car.
yeah, the “military” and “need to sell fast” are textbook scams.
but, it is important to make sure you see the title for any used car you’re keen on buying. A milder “scam” out there is curbstoning; someone will post an ad as if they’re selling their own car, but then tell you to go to a dealer/lot of someone they know to do the paperwork. in that case the dealer is the one actually selling the car.
also, there’s “title skipping.” usually a flipper will buy a car, not bother to have the title transferred to them, and just foist it onto the next buyer.
After some further communication, it turns out that the car is not located locally after all, Craig’s list listing notwithstanding. The car is with the seller, at her military base in Nebraska. So it’s indeed a classic scam, as several posters surmised.
In that case, the thread is pretty much moot. There was never a chance that my relative would have fallen for something like this - she would never have paid anything without the car and papers on hand. The fear was of the possibility that both car and papers would be on hand, but that both would turn out to have been stolen. But that’s not the situation anyway, as it turns out.
There might indeed be a car. It might be someone else’s car, or just a picture of one. Doesn’t really matter.
This scam reminds me of the “house for rent” scam. A vacant house is up for sale. The scammer finds the sale listing; pretends to be the owner and the potential renter can view the property because…it’s there, right? The fake owner wants a deposit; the sucker sends it, and loses it.
As a (legitimate) real estate broker, I have had this tried on properties I have listed. The smartest buyers do some research, and I have gotten emails from potential suckers who wanted my opinion on a rental offer. The sale offer was legitimate, the rental offer was not.
I emphasize this, not so much for the OP who has wisely decided to move on from the ad, but for anyone else who might feel they can figure out how to beat the scammer. ALL Craigslist warns you right off the bat: the site is for local deals in cash. Any deviation is a scam.
OTOH, that is pretty much how I got my previous car. Albeit the price was only a thousand or two off Edmunds appraisal, not the LOL intelligence test price mentioned in the OP. It worked out great for five years. Never thought I’d like Priuses, but the car was great until the A/C crapped out.
Anyway, ask for the VIN, do an auto check history. Vincheck.info or something like that, wasn’t half bad for doing some free history checks. Third party mechanic inspection is good.
When buying, make sure they’ve a title. Know what a real car title in that state looks like. Make sure the name on their ID matches the name on the title. Make sure the VIN on the car matches the VIN on the title. My state recommends that both buyer and seller go to the DMV to complete the transfer.
I don’t know about that last step, but any grief about the preceding steps? Walk.
Edit: congrats on your relative remaining unscammed. CL seems to be mostly, dealers, flakes, and scammers these days.
Again, I don’t think any of this was the issue. The problem is suppose they are there, the car is there, they have legit title, and they have ID. What next, when facing a situation where the price looks completely ridiculous?
What I was worried about was the following scenario. Some scammer notices that someone has left town for a while, breaks into their house and steals their car keys, title, and possibly various ID papers, or else has fake ID. Now they post the car for sale, and when the buyer shows up they have all the legit papers. Verifying the car’s paperwork - even if you go to the DMV - is not going to help you here, because it’s all legit, just that the person standing in front of you selling the car is impersonating the owner, who you don’t know.
Turned out in the end that this was not the situation, but that was the question, anyway.
A week or so after we bought our previous house, we had some random people show up interested in the rental ad they’d seen. Luckily, we had already moved in and were able to let them know they were about to be victims of a scam. If we hadn’t moved in, I can imagine them looking at the vacant house and giving the scammer money.
Prior to the pandemic, my daughter and her fiancé were house hunting. Once corona hit, they continued to window shop, but figured they’d hold off on anything serious.
Then their ideal home hit the market as a “for sale by owner”. They looked online, did a drive by, finally called the phone number. The price seemed too low, but the seller was in a jam, having already moved and purchased a new place on the west coast.
They looked at the house and all seemed perfect. The seller dropped the price even more. They had a home inspector look things over. If not for COVID19 they would have bought the house.
Just to show they were still interested, they made a lowball offer and awaited a counteroffer. Instead, the seller accepted so long as an expedited closing could take place. They got a hell of a deal, moved in last weekend.
As noted - it’s a very common scam. I was looking for a new vehicle last summer and saw many of these on AutoTrader and Craigslist.
In my case it was a Toyota Highlander, about $10K less than it should be on Autotrader. The seller posted in Toronto area and when I asked to see the SUV I was told that it was in Halifax and the seller said they’re in the military and being deployed overseas and just “wanted to get rid of the car.”
I asked scam savvy buddy about it and he said to test them by saying I had a friend in the Halifax area (I don’t) and he’d swing by to see the vehicle, just give their local contact info. I never heard back.
I reported it to Autotrader and it was taken down the next day.
If the price looks completely ridiculous and you don’t know the person , just stay away from it. The scenario you describe is unlikely for a couple of reasons - first, because even if the thief steals the paperwork they are not likely to be able to get legitimate looking ID with the real owner’s name and the thief’s photo and secondly , a “professional” thief will probably get at least the same price ( maybe more) selling it to a chop shop.
For what it’s worth, most military bases have POV lots (aka lemon lots) for people to sell their vehicles if they need to when changing stations. Pretty good turnover, I don’t think I have seen a vehicle sit on the lot for over a week or so.
When I’ve sold vehicles, if the person asks for the VIN, I either don’t reply or (very nicely) invite them to come take a look at the car and they can grab the VIN while they’re looking at it.
While I don’t suspect there’s a whole lot you can do with a VIN, especially considering you can go collect hundreds of them in your local shopping mall parking lot, I’m just not interested in playing games.
Some of the requests may be legit, but a lot aren’t. In any case, why go back and forth with someone making special requests when there’s often a line of people willing to show up at your door this afternoon with cash in hand.
The way I see it, if you’re serious about buying it, this shouldn’t be a deal breaker. If it’s a scam (or you’re not serious), then…then nothing, that’s the end of it.
Also, the ‘Can you get a VIN report’…always a scam.
But in any case, “I’m in the Military, have to buy/sell now” is a scam. The Military/out of the country thing is just to explain why they won’t be around during the transaction…but here’s a check, keep your money and give the rest to this other person that’s now involved for some reason.