Craigslist Auto Scams

[DGS49]

Everybody knows, posting an ad on Craigslist invites some stupid, unpleasant, and dangerous responses. People try to sell you shit, try to get you to pay them to "help" sell your thing, and who knows what else.

I had good luck selling my motorcycle a couple weeks ago, and am in the process of selling my car now.

But there is one thing that perplexes me. The end result of all the bogus calls and emails has been to get me to purchase a title history report - like a CarFax only different. Why?

Is there money in these things? At $40 each? Or is this a way to get sensitive information from me? A credit card number (to pay for the report)?

Am i missing something?

 

[Lewdog]

Well car reports can be important for a couple reasons, with two really important ones. First, if a car has a negative history on it, some banks may not even approve loans for them. The other has to do with buying in one state and titling in another. For example in Kentucky, if you buy a car with a rebuilt red title, you can only title and register it in Kentucky, not other states.

 

[DGS49]

I don't think it has anything to do with the actual history of the car. On Saturday, I purchased a CarFax for my car and sent this bastard a pdf of it - even offered to flip him the email fro Car Fax, so he could be sure that I hadn't doctored it. But he went back to, "No, you have to get the report from MY preferred source."

In short, it was all bullshit, and he was scheming to get me to buy that report (which was only $20).

Why?