In recent years, the price of vintage cars has risen rapidly and online sales are becoming an increasingly common component in our daily lives. So, it’s no surprise that there are scammers out there who want to appropriate this for their own benefit. -Public benefit.
More and more bad actors are stealing images from genuine classified ads and employing complicated techniques to pretend to sell cars that don’t belong to them. YouTuber Pleasant Green recently made the decision to figure out how to do it in a new video.
Scouring the web for classified ads for vintage cars that seemed too smart to be true (like a 1955 Ford Thunderbird for $31,000), he discovered a series of scammers stealing money borrowed from enthusiasts. All indicated authentic addresses, connected to phone numbers, and some were able to provide the YouTuber with convincing ownership documents.
Read: A Maine Classic Car Dealership That Never Existed Scams Buyers With Thousands of Dollars
While the full video is worth watching, Pleasant Green highlights some red flags that shoppers are paying attention to, as well as some steps they can take to protect themselves from such scammers.
First, costs that are too smart to be true probably are. But not all cars are as obscenely underrated as the aforementioned T-bird. That’s why it’s helpful to use the opposite symbol to search for symbols used through online retailers. If the dealership has used the exact same images of the car you’re interested in, that’s a red flag.
In addition, it can be helpful to look up the address of the indexed location through the reseller. First, you can see if it’s genuine, and you can use Google Street View to find more clues. If, for example, the construction or even the collection number of cars on the site is nothing like the one indexed online, that’s a red flag. If a scammer uses the address of a genuine dealership, they can also locate the phone number of the genuine store and call to see if the vehicle is there.
For those who are already in the process of buying a vehicle, the state may be able to help as well. Pleasant Green can check with the Texas Division of Motor Vehicle Control to verify that the VIN of the car you are looking for is not the same. registered there and that the documents sent to him were fake.
While it’s a smart idea to see a car in real life before saving money, it can be tricky with older, rarer vehicles. Therefore, it is inevitable that some buyers will have to take a leap of religion to get the car of their dreams. . Hopefully, by employing some of the equipment defined in this video, you will be able to protect yourself from scammers.