New Cars

Avoiding Used Car Scams

The fraudsters are at it again...

Have you seen the recent reports about the latest used car scam? In this case, it starts when a buyer is duped into paying a tantalisingly low price for an advertised vehicle.

The ads are posted on reputable car sales websites. When a buyer offers to purchase a vehicle they're directed to seemingly legitimate sites and told that they should put the money in a "holding account" while the car is shipped.

Needless to say, these cars never arrive.

(The Met say that around 21,000 suspect ads were pulled from sites last year, with around 200 people falling for the scam in 2008.)

Of course, it's not just buyers who fall prey to these schemes. Sellers (often people who are desperately thinking "I need to sell my car quickly") are frequently targeted by people claiming to be "agents". They will either offer to give the details of the potential buyer for a fee, or they will present a fake "international cheque" on behalf of their "client".

It's easy to say, but the rule is always that if it looks to good to be true, it almost certainly is.

Of course, at Sell Car we always send the money to your account before picking the car up! We're also about to unveil a great new online tool that can help you avoid buying dodgy vehicles.

Getting the finance checked...

AutoCheck (powered by credit reference specialists, Experian) is the best way to find out about the history of any car.

You can check if there's any outstanding finance on a vehicle. You can also check for any large insurance claims (which can help you work out if the car is in a fit state to drive or has been patched together simply to sell on).

Beat the clockers...

The other benefit of running an AutoCheck is that it makes it easier to spot "clocked" cars. It can be very difficult to tell if a car's mileage has been tampered with when it's sitting in a driveway or a dealer's yard. However, if you run an AutoCheck on a Volvo that had a registered mileage of 78,000 miles two years ago, yet the current owner claims it has only 75,000 miles on the clock – you can be pretty sure that something fishy is going on!

If you see or hear about any new scams, do let us know at Sell Car UK. We're always keen to expose the unscrupulous operators in the industry – and always keen to help anyone who's worrying "who'll buy my car" with fast payments and free pick-ups.