Car Buyer Scams?

[Cash Money Hoes]

I have posted a car for sale on Auto trader and Kijiji and I have been hammered with several unique numbers calling and texting from 416 and 647 area codes, while I have received next to 0 interest locally or from other area codes. They dont appear to be fake spoofed numbers either.

Each person is making ridiculous offers, between 20-25% under asking price on a vehicle after asking a few preliminary questions with little interest in having the car looked at locally. The offers are all suspiciously close together in their range, coming from the same area codes, texts have grammatical mistakes and for those that call, English does not appear to be a first language.

I should also note that the texts don't seem to be spam or bots or at least they pass the Turing test.

I am wondering if this is some elaborate ploy to inundate sellers with low balls in an effort to establish 'Market Value' and then have someone later come in with a relatively less ridiculous, but still below market offer. Or is there something else going on here.

I am fairly confident that I am not out to lunch on my pricing as I am in the lower range for the vehicle as compared to others online.

Anyone else experiencing this? I'm curious if anyone has insight into this or maybe I am just being paranoid with this particular vehicle attracting exclusively sketchy tire kickers from Toronto.

As an aside, I have found that over the years, Kijiji is a far better market when selling my cars. Every buyer has come through Kijiji, auto trader, just seems to be tire kickers and scammers.

[dj_rice]

You must be new to this.

They will want you to ship the vehicle to them with a broker or some shit like that and funds wont clear or something. Cant remember the exact scam

[revelations]

Standard Kijji - expect nothing less. Perhaps post in the ad LOCAL BUYERS ONLY or something to that effect, if its a common vehicle.

[Cash Money Hoes]

You must be new to this.

They will want you to ship the vehicle to them with a broker or some shit like that and funds wont clear or something. Cant remember the exact scam

Sold lots of cars in my day and have sorted through what you are talking about. Does not appear to be the same thing.

The scam you reference assumes you can come to terms on a deal in order for the scam to progress to the next stage. Low balls undermine this.

[benz_890]

Standard Kijji - expect nothing less. Perhaps post in the ad LOCAL BUYERS ONLY or something to that effect, if its a common vehicle.

That doesn't deter them from inquiring lol

[arcticcat522]

I am wondering if this is some elaborate ploy to inundate sellers with low balls in an effort to establish 'Market Value' and then have someone later come in with a relatively less ridiculous, but still below market offer. Or is there something else going on here.


My guess is this

[beyond_ban]

Sold lots of cars in my day and have sorted through what you are talking about. Does not appear to be the same thing.

The scam you reference assumes you can come to terms on a deal in order for the scam to progress to the next stage. Low balls undermine this.

Haha, the reverse insurance scam where you try inflate your written off vehicles value.

[Chester]

I have posted a car for sale on Auto trader and Kijiji and I have been hammered with several unique numbers calling and texting from 416 and 647 area codes, while I have received next to 0...snip...h Kijiji, auto trader, just seems to be tire kickers and scammers.

Yup, went through this selling a vehicle at the end of January. Exactly as you described. I clued into it after a week, as my vehicle was the lowest priced of its model and these guys would offer 10-15k less than asking sight unseen.