Used car scams?

[KISS_ME]

I just got back from looking at the Kijiji car that had a ridiculous price but had some serious red flags to the owners story. Gut feeling is telling me to walk away but i wanted to ask the community of the types of scams out there these days.

Here's my scenario: 2014 accord w/ 16k KM for $20K. Owner of the car tells me he just bought the car two days ago (Oct. 22nd per bill of sale) with a sale price of $24K, he tells me however he paid only $19K for the car because for tax reasons. i verified the bill of sale VIN matches the car and the address matches that of the driver license but the address i'm at to view to car isn't even close to where the sale was done. i took down the bill of sale and phoned the "previous owner" and he tells me the car was purchased by him first hand and sold to his friend at a discount price. when i do a VIN search i find the car was sold out of an Red Deer dealership just earlier this month as a used car so it's impossible for him to have bought it new. Long story short, no stories add up.

what i'm curious about is whether people can get away with selling stolen cars? is that even possible? Hoping someone can shed some light into this.

Many thanks in advance.

[Jonathanl10]

So the previous owner told you he bought it brand new, and it turns out it was a used car at a dealer a while back. I'd run away.

Another thing is, the current owner paid 19k for it and is selling it to you at 20k. I wouldn't let them make a profit to begin with. When someone sells a used car, the car has an 'additional' owner to the list which further devalues it. It's great that he got it for cheap from his friend but that doesn't mean he can bite me in the ass for it.

I've bought wheels before, used them for a season and have sold them for more and made a profit, but I NEVER tell anyone this because if I do, they could use it as leverage to buy it for less than I got them for.

If he wants a sale, he's taking another loss for it.

If I were you, I'd run away. Plenty of '14 Accords starting to pop up that you can get for 20k depending on trim level.

[BokCh0y]

I came across something similar a couple years ago when i was looking at TSX for my son.

Long story short, the guy told me he bought the car from the original owner. Owned it for a couple years now, but needs money for school. We worked out a price. I took the VIN home and ran a car fax - The TSX came back with a bunch of claims - hail damage, front end collision, previously stolen and another collision. The last data source indicated it was at auction with x number km's. Literally was at the auction a month and a bit prior to me seeing it. This let me know this guy was buying the cars from auctions for cheap and flipping them for profit. I also typed his phone number into google and saw that he's been buying and selling cars for bit with the same "i need money for school" sales pitch.

Obviously I ended up walking away, which is what you should do as well.

[BensonTT]

Originally posted by Jonathanl10


If I were you, I'd run away. Plenty of '14 Accords starting to pop up that you can get for 20k depending on trim level.

The LX model maybe lol

[zieg]

Are you asking if you're being scammed or just how badly?

[msixty]

oh jes very god del.

[CanmoreOrLess]

Pop into a police station, explain your findings and let them decide if it has criminal intent written all over it. Better to snuff out this sort of activity now and get arrests made, ignoring it and someone else gets burned and it could be someone you know.

[KISS_ME]

thanks for the advice guys. i spoke to the calgary police non-emergency line and they told me to just walk away. as for bringing it to their attention for criminal intent, they told me it's something i need to have proof of, not just speculations. regardless though, thanks for the advice all.