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Car selling scam emails are popping up like flys.

They happen right under people's noses without them ever realizing it. From the western union scams to the katrina scam, prevent yourself from becoming a victim. Lets go through some of the many scams out there.

1. Nigerian email scams

These Nigerian scams have been spamming up people's email accounts like crazy for a long time now. Time, and time again I get hit with these ridiculous emails. I can see them coming a mile away. If you've posted adds on craigslist, you've probably seen this before. In this example, someone wants to buy your car sight unseen. It may look like this:

You can spot these car selling scams by the way they're written. Most of these types of scams have the same writing style. If you see an email like this, report it as junk, or a phishing scam. In one of these car selling scams, your being asked to take out the sale amount for the car, and send the rest to a third party, shipping company, assistant etc. These scams typically involve someone contacting you from outside the country. Your offered a cashier's check for a much larger amount than your asking price for the vehicle. The check scammers are "trusting" you with sending the remaining balance to the third party via a money transfer service like Western Union. With these car selling scams scammer sends out a cashier's check that looks authentic, but is actually fake. What they're hoping, is that you think the fake check is real. Then, they want you to wire your money to their third party. After you wire them the money, you go to the deposit the check, and it doesn't clear. Your held liable for the phony check, and the money you wired is gone. Verify the check with the bank that issued it before you send any money, especially with a transaction done over the internet.

Here is another similar one I got recently

I love it how they say "God Bless."
If it seems to good to be true, it most likely is!

2. EBAY Auction Fraud

Fraud on EBAY has been on the rise. Be careful when bidding. Make sure to check the sellers feedback history as a buyer, and a seller. Try to contact the seller before you bid on the item. Watch for deals that are too good to be true. Watch out for emails sent from EBAY. Scammers duplicate the EBAY templates, and request for you to fill in your personal information such as their credit card number, social security number, or account password. They call these "Spoof Emails" because they fake the appearance of EBAY. Some ways you can spot spoof emails are:

• EBAY requesting you update your account information.
• Greetings which aren't personally directed to a particular individual like "hello seller"
• Threats like your account will be terminated if you don't update your information.
• Forged email addresses.

Never provide personal information in an email

If you think you entered your information into a fake site, contact your bank or financial institution immediately. Change your EBAY account password frequently to prevent access to your account. Make your password a difficult one to copy. One with plenty of different numbers, and letters.

3. Katrina Scam

When a vehicle has been flooded, and submerged in water it's branded with a salvage title by insurance companies, and written off as a total loss. More than 200,000 cars were flooded during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and salvaged. A salvaged title vehicle can be re registered in certain states with a clean title. Scammers are taking these Katrina Cars to different states, and registering them, concealing the salvage status of the vehicle. Protect yourself from hidden problems. Check the vehicle's history before you buy with an official AutoCheck® vehicle history report. Check for water damage when inspecting a vehicle. Check for a mildew smell inside the car, and the trunk. Look for water in the spare tire well. Check for water damage, and corroded metal parts under the seats, and the carpet. Not all buyers have a problem with driving salvage vehicles as long as they know up front. It's when they find out later that it's a problem. Some people don't mind driving salvage vehicles because they can get something much newer with low miles for way cheaper. It's hard to tell that a lot of salvaged cars were ever salvaged to begin with. Your hot date doesn't know your driving her around in a salvaged corvette, and you got it for half the price!

4. Concealing Salvage Titles

Some common car selling scams are concealing salvage titles by giving the buyer a duplicate title instead of the original. I myself have fallen victim to these car selling scams. Honest sellers will use duplicate titles when they can't find the original. Don't buy the car just yet if the seller doesn't have the original title. Get a FREE VIN Check from AutoCheck®. Without the original title you have no way of knowing if the car has a salvage title or not. You also don't know if the seller is the actual owner,unless they show you a copy of the registration. If a car has a salvage title, it will be branded "Salvaged" inside the rectangle on upper right-hand corner of the title.

5. Odometer Fraud

Plenty of vehicles have odometer failure, and the true mileage is unknown. Scammers can also remove odometers easily out of the instrument cluster, and roll them back. Digital odometer can also be tampered with. Digital odometers were introduced to reduce odometer tampering. Scammers are clever and quickly learned how to tamper the digital odometers. When I buy cars at dealer auctions, the auctioneer announces if the true mileage is unknown on a vehicle. Many dishonest dealers don't disclose this to their customers. The only way you will find out any odometer fraud is by going to AutoCheck®, and running a history report on the vehicle. You can also look through past maintenance records, if any, to check the accuracy of the mileage stated on the odometer.

Typical car selling scams concealing vehicle problems

Some car selling scams involve muffling engine noise by draining the oil, and adding 50 weight heavy motor oil with Lucas oil stabilizer. The vehicle has to be driven for a little while to muffle the noise but most of the time it works. Ironically very clean oil isn't always a good sign so watch out.

6. Auction Selling Scams

Auction Scam A.
Many scammers will temporarily have the check engine light turned off. Anybody can temporarily turn off a check engine light with an OBD1 or OBD2 scanner. These are diagnostic tools used by mechanics. These tools are used so mechanics can find out what’s wrong with your car when the check engine light comes on. You can turn the check engine light off temporarily with these tools so you won't be able to see it on the instrument cluster when the vehicle is going through the auction block. The light will pop back on after some driving along with any other lights temporarily turned off like the SRS or ABS light. If you have your own OBD scanner, you can detect if a check engine light has been temporarily turned off. You can also temporarily turn off check engine light’s buy disconnecting the battery on some vehicles. These car selling scams are typical at dealer auto auction.

Another way to see if the check engine light has been tampered with is turn the key so the battery comes on, but don't crank the engine. Make sure all the instrument cluster lights come on (check engine, abs, airbags). If one of them doesn't, its either been disconnected or the light bulb burnt out. I once fell victim to this scam at an auction. Car selling scams go even deeper than that. Some scammers will remove the dash, and cover the warning light with black paint.

Auction Scam B.- Sabotaging The Car

Some dealers will sabotage a vehicle before it runs through the auction block in hopes of getting it cheaper. What they'll do is pull one of the spark plug wires from the distributor cap. When this happens the car isn't running on all its cylinders. As it's going through the auction block it's shaking and seems like there's some serious engine damage. The dealer who sabotaged the vehicle is hoping to get the car cheaper this way. It happens all the time, and if someone gets caught doing it there are some serious consequences.

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