The Better Business Bureau warns online car buyers to beware: the market is becoming flooded with fraudulent Web sites that are designed to trick customers into buying used cars at great prices.
The sites offer repossessed cars at cheap prices, and ask buyers to wire the money. Once the buyer sends the money, it’s gone and the buyer gets no car. This scam is incredibly widespread, since nearly 75 percent of all consumers use the Internet as an aid to help them find the best deal on an automobile.
Some of the sites have adopted monikers from real and reliable car dealerships, who have good ratings with the BBB. The sites are often “flashy” and bear a “Carfax-certified dealership” logo. Carfax does not certify dealerships. Once a consumer realizes he or she has been duped, the real dealership is inundated with complaints, but is powerless to do anything, since the actual dealership had nothing to do with the Web site or the phony sale.
Last year, the FBI received almost 6,900 consumer complaints about Internet auto fraud, and 4,300 complaints have already been registered this year.
One such site is www.americaautosales.com. Buyers wired money in for their purchases, and received a confirmation. They were directed to the actual, legitimate dealership that operates under the same name, to pick up their newly-purchased cars. Once the dealership began receiving calls and complaints, dealership owners contacted the authorities. The Web site was taken down in a matter of days, but has popped back up. This scam alone hoodwinked buyers all over the country.
“Because scammers essentially steal the identity and good name of real auto dealers, car shoppers will think they’re buying a car from a reputable business,” said Stephen A. Cox, president and CEO of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. “The truth is, they’re being sold a bill of goods by a coordinated, agile and, in all likelihood, overseas outfit of scammers.”
Bogus sites posing as legitimate dealers have popped up in Tennessee, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico and Texas.
The BBB says that consumers can protect themselves from this type of scam if they steer clear of Web sites that advertise prices that are too good to be true, dealers who only communicate through chat or e-mail or dealers who only accept payment through wire transfer.
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