The 9 biggest scams to avoid when buying a car on Craigslist

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Craigslist is a popular place to go to for used vehicles, but that doesn’t mean everyone posting a for-sale car is acting neighborly.
While there are plenty of genuine people looking to sell, there are also scammers looking to get your money.
We asked experts which scams to watch out for when buying a car on Craigslist, and this is what they said.
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Used car salesmen and Internet sellers both tend to get a bad rap, and the same holds true for people selling cars online.

Craigslist has that local feel, but that doesn’t mean everyone posting a for-sale car is acting neighborly. While there are plenty of genuine people looking to make a one-on-one sale instead of trading their vehicle in, there are also scammers looking to get your money for a nonexistent car or sell you an automobile in bad condition.

"Consumers have been victimized by fraudulent auto transactions since Henry Ford opened shop," Donald E. Petersen, a Florida consumer protection lawyer specializing in fraud cases, told Business Insider.

We asked consumer protection experts about the biggest scams people should watch out for when they’re buying a car on Craigslist, and this is what they said.

Spoof pages

Gil C/Shutterstock

This is one of the biggest things to watch out for on Craigslist postings: a car that doesn’t actually exist. Scammers will copy and paste images from a real posting, then make fake listings in dozens of cities.

Be wary of a seller who’s hesitant to meet in person, and don’t spend money on a car you’ve never seen. Katherine Hutt, director of communications for the Better Business Bureau, told Business Insider that she’s seen identical photos listed on dozens of sites across the country. "Who knows where the original car was?" she said. "The scammer kept using the same photo over and over, with multiple victims."

To figure out if the car you’re looking at is real, the BBB recommends copying a picture from the listing and doing a reverse-image search on Google. If the car shows up on multiple sites in multiple cities, you can bet that it’s a fake.

Same goes for the text: Scammers won’t always want to make an all-new listing for every vehicle. Type a snippet from the Craigslist description into Google in quotes, and see if any other listings are using the same words.

Curbstoning

Mike Blake/Reuters

While there’s nothing illegal about selling your car to an individual instead of going through a dealer, people who sell a certain number of vehicles a year (the number varies from state to state) are supposed to get licensed. Those who don’t, and pose as individual sellers, are known as curbstone dealers.

There’s likely a reason that they’re trying to bypass the rules licensed dealers need to follow, like guaranteeing money back if the car ends up being a lemon. And curbstone dealers are "often transient or, at the minimum, difficult to locate, Petersen said.

If something does go wrong, you — and the authorities — will have a tough time tracking that curbstone seller down.

Hidden damage

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Unless you have a mechanic’s-level knowledge of cars, your untrained eye might not realize that high-end parts have been replaced with subpar pieces or that the airbags are missing.

Your mechanic will be able to tell you if there’s anything wrong with the vehicle, so ask the seller if a trusted auto expert — not the one the seller supposedly hired — can look it over before you commit.

"If a seller won’t allow you to take it to a mechanic before you buy, immediately go elsewhere," Petersen said.

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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Marissa Laliberte)