Beware of cars for sale by owners

You should beware of the ad on the community bulletin board that says “cars for sale by owners”. It would be wise to read the entire ad so that you can determine if it is really legitimate. People offering used cars for sale by dealers and listings purporting 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 free online community bulletin boards. However, all I found were attractive deals that I couldn’t afford, affordable deals that included cars with no engines and no pink receipts. There were also no responses after I did my best to visit the owners, test drive and check the vehicle out, and call back as requested with an offer.

I also found listings that were clearly for cars and trucks offered by a dealer and confirmed by the dealer’s business information. However, I was suspicious because an ad for a 1970s Chevy truck had contact information including four phone numbers and one clearly misspelled detail. To make matters worse, I found separate listings for a Ford F-250, a Chevy Nova, and a list of two passenger cars that had the same contact information, those same four phone numbers, and that same clearly 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. The cars and trucks existed, and they were presented with photographs. However, the background in each of the photos was the same and the contact information and details were also the same. This means that the supposed cars for sale by owners were actually listed in the wrong place on purpose, 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 simply turned it into cars for the owners to sell. She wasted the time and energy of serious buyers because of her actions. She also gave the already dubious characters in the used car business a more negative identity.