Looking For A New Car? Stay Away From The Facebook Scams.
It's the most wonderful time of the year.
I mean, that's the lyric right? Everyone buying gifts for one another, but people needing money to make it happen.
So what better way than to sell an old car you no longer need? It's bound to bring in a good chunk of money, especially if you price it well in todays car market.
I've noticed on a couple of Amarillo buy and sell groups on Facebook this exact thing happening. Used cars are popping up left and right for sale, a lot of them very well priced.
You know what else I'm noticing? Those very same cars selling rather quickly...but there is actually no car.
Tis the season for scammers to come to the surface. You see, it's very easy to find pics of cars from other Facebook pages and whatnot to post and sell off as your own. Unfortunately, that kind of thing happens all the time.
I'm a big sports card collector, and it's something that runs rampant in that world on Facebook. Now, measures have been taken there where they ask you to "coin the card", which is basically a piece of paper with your name and the date on it next to the card. This ensures you at least have possession of the card.
It's a bit harder to do with a car though. Now, one would think if you're buying a car, you'd want to see it in person and give it a whirl before committing to it right?
Seems there are quite a few people out there who don't want to miss out on the deal though, so they're committing to purchasing the car on the strength of someone's word. To make matters worse, they're PAYING the person via Venmo, PayPal or CashApp before even picking up the car.
That alone seems like a huge mistake, never pay someone prior to actually seeing the product for sale. Because of this, I've seen several people in these Facebook group saying once they paid, the seller blocked them on Facebook and disappeared.
There are a lot of fake profiles created out there, and unfortunately most of these people don't get caught. They just take the money and run. Do yourself a favor this holiday season. If the deal is too good to be true, it probably is. If you want to sniff it out a bit, feel free to, but make sure you actually SEE the product before paying someone.