Fake Classic Car Ads - Don’t Get Taken!
By Tom Catuosco
Whenever a certain type of item is worth a lot of money, there are scummy people who make a living running scams based on that item - real estate, antiques, purebred dogs, rare coins...almost anything. One scam we’ve noticed popping up lately is fake ads for classic cars.
Classic car scam ads work like most other online scams that use fake ads. They try to lure you in with a super low price hoping you’ll throw your common sense out the window in hopes of getting the deal of the century.
Say you’ve always dreamed of owning a 1963 Corvette. The cool looking one with the split rear window. You know a good example is way out of your price range, but you still like to browse cars for sale online and daydream about buying one. One day you come across a car ad that could turn your dream into reality - A ‘63 split window Corvette, matching numbers with full documentation in near concours condition. The price is only $15,000. Wow! For the cost of a basic used family car, you can finally own that Vette.
Before you call your insurance agent for a quote and before you tell your wife her SUV is sleeping in the driveway from now on, better take a deep breath, put your brain back in your head and think. The ad is completely bogus.
Nobody sells their classic car for a fraction of its true value.
Here’s what will happen if you respond to the ad -
- You won’t be able to see the car in person. The seller with have some excuse for this.
- The super low price will be explained away with some sort of sob story, like medical bills or some other emergency.
- An immediate deposit will be asked for. Most likely in the form of a Western Union money order to an address outside of the United States. (Many of these online scammers are located in other countries)
- The deal must be made ASAP according to the seller. Of course, they will have a fake story to back up their reason for this urgency.
Aside from the too good to be true price listed, many classic car scam ads can appear to be legitimate. Scammers will often steal pictures and descriptions from real ads posted on other sites. They simply change the price and the contact information. For example, a scammer tried posting a classic 1955 Mercedes SL convertible on The Road Code recently. The ad looked totally legit except for one detail - the price was only $16,000. That’s insanely low for that type of car. A 10 second Google search showed that the description and photos were stolen from a genuine eBay auction that ended the week before. Final sale price of the authentic car was over $90K.
How can you protect yourself from falling for a classic car scam online?
- Be wary of bargain prices.
- Search for duplicate ads - Since many scammers are lazy, there’s a good chance they used a word for word description from a real ad and have also posted their fake listing on many different websites. If you see the same exact car advertised elsewhere at a much higher price, or you see the same car listed for sale in a completely different state than the one in the ad you saw, you know it’s fake.
- Go in person to see the car and do the deal.
- Sometimes a car is located far away and it’s not practical to see it in person. In such a case, do everything you can to verify the car exists, is legally owned by the seller, and the condition is as advertised. You can check ownership with the state’s DMV, run a CarFax, and pay a professional located in the area to perform a pre-purchase inspection on the car.
Good luck if you’re hunting down a classic car. Just remember, nobody is going to give theirs away and you usually get what you pay for.