Reader’s Question:

Hi. I live in Houston, Texas and my question is very simple. How can we avoid web car dealer scams over the internet?

Dylan

Houston, TX

Craiglist cars in Houston is fast growing trend when it comes to online used car shopping. Craiglist is a local community for classified as and forums that started in the mid 90’s. Eight years later, it became the most visited website over the Internet. It follows the basic concept of the classified ads section of your local news paper. The listings are products are posted by product sellers, service providers, then viewed and browsed by interested individuals in the products or services. You may think of it as an online flea market.

The seller can write anything about the car, and if the buyers is not really careful and would not research about this specific car, once a bill of sale is made, and an AS IS form is signed, the seller is not liable for anything, especially that they can claim the description was to the best of their knowledge.

I personally contacted sellers and asked about their cars, pretending not to know much about the car, and as expected, some immoral dealers, or private sellers took advantage of it, and tried as much as possible to hide information until their faced with it. So it would be really helpful to research first before buying cheap used cars in Houston.

Tags: car dealer, cars, used car