Selling a used car, how do I avoid scams?

Put it out on the street with a 4-Sale sign.

This concept has been working for the last 80+ years.

try craigslist.org or ebay

I've always found the local newspaper to fetch higher prices. Of course, I always insist on cash only.

Ted

I have done that.

Bring it to a detailer, have it cleaned up. Put it on the front lawn with a for sale sign... make sure you tell them it gets great mpg (be truthfull) sell it as is and be firm with your price. It will be gone in two weeks.

You could try making the buyer wait until the check clears the bank, before it can be shipped. Of course, they may not go for that.

-Kirk Matheson

Make them send it through western union as a transfer. That way they will verify his information on his side using ID (because of the amount) and they will pay you when you show up with ID. As far as I know there is no way to be scammed this way.

Easy to avoid scams - sell it to somebody who comes to get it and brings money. You're right, all these fake check and mail back extra money deals are the going thing. You really can't take a cashier's check any more, unfortunately, because they're so easy to fake. But luckily, your car's not worth much, so you can take a cash transaction for it.

Since the paperwork had to be notarized, last time I sold a car I met the guy at the bank and he took the money out and I put it back in the bank. Bank did the notary stuff for free.

Nothing has to be notarized in Massachusetts, you just sign the title over.

I've put an ad on Craig's list that includes the proviso that the deal has to be done in person, if they want to ship the car to Nigeria they can forget it. I haven't had any response from the Craig's list ad yet but I'm gotten three scam responses from the Cars.com add. Two of the guys have admitted that they are in London. The one who say's he's a broker I told that I'm selling the car to local buyer. The other one who claims that he want's it for his son I've told that he would have to take care of the shipping himself and that I'd require a couple of weeks for the bank to clear the check, we'll see if he continues to persist with this. I got a third one that was less well crafted then the others and that included a phony phone number I simply forwarded to snipped-for-privacy@cars.com.

That's good. Actually it can be worse than that. It can take the bank six weeks or so to find out even a Canadian money order is fraud - a stolen genuine one for example. Happened to a friend of mine and everyone was angry at him, even his own bank although he specifically asked the bank to double-check the money order. He lost big-time on this scam.

Don't sweat it. Just tell the buyer you won't release the car until the funds are in your bank. Pretty straight forward.

------------------ Alex

That's exactly why you wait until the funds clear and are in your bank before you ship the item you are selling. If the buyer balks, tell them they should have used a better method to pay.

---------------- Alex

The scam has nothing to do with shipping them the car, that never happens because the "shipper" isn't real. The way that the scam works is that the certified check appears to be real and the bank accepts it. You then send a real check to the "shipper" and then sometime later your bank comes back and tells you that the original check was bogus. As the previous poster said it can take weeks for the bank to figure it out.

BTW don't ever post an ad on cars.com. I've had mine up for a couple of weeks and the only responses that I've had have been from scammers, all of whom seem to be in the UK. I'm pretty sure that the scammers have software that is monitoring cars.com and automatically sends an e-mail to any new or edited posting. When I first posted the ad I had several scammers contact me, then it stopped for a week. I edited the ad and changed the price last night, I had two more scam inquiries within an hour.

I'm having a little better luck with Craiglist, I've had two calls (not e-mails) from local people but they haven't gone anywhere. I've been asking the for the blue-book value which is clearly to high. What is the consensus of this group about a fair price for a 1994 Concorde with a 3.5L engine and 128K miles on it?

Let me try again. Are you aware that funds can be deposited and undeposited? When that happens, owing to fraud, the FBI and the bank will come knocking on your door. If you withdrew the the so-called good deposited funds, then they will demand the monies back pronto. So someone can be out lots of cash and a car. And the bank will have the FBI doing the talking. They, at the point, don't care how the fraud was perpetrated, first they want their money back.

Now if this is cash, regardless of transferring methods or depositing, I don't see any risk. With things that used to be as good as cash, there is now considerable risk, like with stolen money orders. They take time to process and reveal the fraud. The bank in the meantime releases the money. When weeks or even a month or so later, the fraud surfaces, the bank wants the money back. They want the money back even if they okayed the money order!!!

Actually there's a variation on that scam you have to be aware of although it doesen't apply to car sales, but it works even better for the thieves. It is usually done against the buyers - it's the typical bogus item or no-ship, but they take care to only defraud you about $30 or less. As a result you do nothing because the banks want almost that much to issue stop pays, or to get printouts of cashed money orders. You might think that the thieves won't make much money doing this but they are doing it to hundreds of others at the same time.

Also, one last warning about cash - your not 100% safe there either. Many states nowadays have discovered how lucrative it is to seize assets for "forfeiture" For several years Oregon had a law that allowed police departments to in effect, accuse someone of a crime then seize the alleged proceeds of the crime. Then even if the person was never charged or was charged and found not guilty, since the forfeture was a civil action, not a criminal action, there was not the higher standard of burden of proof on the cops to prove the proceeds were from something illegal (like a drug sale) and they were therefore not required to ever return the seized assets. And they often didn't. Or they would return their cash equivalency less "reasonable charges" for towing and storage, if it was a car for example, which basically meant they would tow your car, assess $500 of towing and storage fees, then sell it at a firesale for $600 and you would get $100 back if you were lucky. Even if the car was worth $3K or so.

This fun and games was put a stop to during the last election as a result of a ballot measure referred by initative petition which was passed, but I'm sure there's states where it still goes on.

Thus you could conceivably sell your car to someone who paid you in cash and a week later have the cops arrive and tell you that the cash was a result of a drug deal and that they were seizing it for forfeiture.

Ted

Good story, but I fail to see how the police would know you sold the car for cash in the first place. The only way I can see it happening is if you were under surveilance by the police at the time. And if you were, for what reason? Then I believe the police would have all the evidence to do just that!

Registration

Again, you wait till the funds hit your account.

Go to

--------------- Alex

That's the price I've been using, the Kelly Blue Book private party sales value of a 94 Concorde in fair condition with 128K miles on it. I've only had a couple of nibbles. I've just put an ad in the Want Advertiser which is how I sold my previous car back in 94, hopefully it will do better.