The Better Business Bureau (BBB) serving Minnesota and North Dakota has helped consumers avert thousands of dollars in losses to suspected online vehicle listing scams.
In April, local BBB resource specialists responded to a caller who was about to send $41,300 for a 1963 Chevy Impala from a business called Easy Classic Cars. After some investigation, BBB determined it was a bogus classic car site showing an address in Dalbo, Minn. BBB advised the caller not to proceed and subsequently created a BBB business profile with a warning at the top of the page.
In another instance, a caller shared with BBB that they were ready to send $29,000 to “Guul Trucking.” They believed they were working with a real company to have a skid steer shipped to their home from out of state. BBB investigated and suspects “Guul Trucking” is an imposter of a legitimate trucking company. We advised the caller against wiring money and created a BBB business profile to warn others.
Websites such as Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace are rife with advertisements for low-price, often rare vehicles, with seemingly eager sellers claiming that the reduced price is because of an upcoming military deployment overseas, a divorce, or the death of a family member to whom the vehicle belonged.
Victims are directed to pay a supposedly independent third party, typically by wire transfer, to hold money in escrow and ship the vehicle. However, no vehicle is ever delivered.
In some cases, the scammers invent bogus websites connected to shipping escrow companies with addresses in towns across the U.S., particularly the Midwest. Those sometimes use the names and addresses of real businesses or car dealerships.
Red flags include a sad story about the seller’s urgent need to sell the vehicle, not allowing the buyer to see or inspect the vehicle in person, a lower-than-usual price or a deal that seems too good to be true, referring the buyer to a third-party company to handle the payment, and payment via wire transfer rather than a traceable method like credit card, cashier’s check etc.
If you suspect you have been a victim of a vehicle escrow scam, you can file a report with your local Better Business Bureau (see bbb.org/bbb-directory) if you lost money, or report a scam online at bbb.org/scamtracker. You may also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov or call 877-FTC-Help; file a complaint with the FBI Internet Crime Center at ic3.gov/complaint; or contact the platform where you saw the suspected bad ad. On Craigslist, go to craigslist.org/contact; on Facebook Marketplace, Facebook.com/help. On ebay, report suspicious emails to [email protected].
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