[mshahidz]

I'm Selling my vehicle online right now, an I got a phone call from a financing company. They claim that my car will be sold at full asking price, guaranteed. All I need to do is a 199 dollar deposit which will be refunded. They claim that they make their money from financing bad credit individuals, and charge a high interest rate.

I figured it was a relatively cheap experiment so long as it's not a scam. I was considering dropping my asking price by 3000 for a quick sale.

[DimSum]

I got a call from some other kind of people, a dealership that was saying they had many clients that were interested in my car and they would give me straight up cash for the amount I was asking for. I didn't end up getting back to them, but yeah it does sound shady.

[tony20009]

It's likely that the folks who called are legit and will pay money for your car. They may or may not have potential customers who want to buy your car, but that's, of course, irrelevant to you as is there offer if you don't want to sell your car.

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by mohammadz

I'm Selling my vehicle online right now, an I got a phone call from a financing company. They claim that my car will be sold at full asking price, guaranteed. All I need to do is a 199 dollar deposit which will be refunded. They claim that they make their money from financing bad credit individuals, and charge a high interest rate.

I figured it was a relatively cheap experiment so long as it's not a scam. I was considering dropping my asking price by 3000 for a quick sale.

Yes, that sounds shady, but only because it is. Sellers don't submit deposits; buyers do.

It could be that what they do is take possession of your car, post it on ebay for a fixed price (the price you want + whatever sum they want) and if and when it sells, give you the money. I wouldn't get involved with an outfit doing that.

The substance sounds like they could be trying to offer you broker services, but they could well have the aim of collecting information from you so they can relieve you of some assets or create additional debt for you. Legit brokers don't solicit private individuals. I would not deal with these folks.

[Peepers]

Scam!! They'll take your $199 and you'll never hear from them again!!

[ton741]

Scam,

[shipill]

100% scam.

you are the seller , you dont put deposit down when you are selling something !!!

[F30JetsFan]

Total BS. This is a scam all the way

[w2]

If you're going to hire an agent to sell your car for you, you pay them a commission or finder's fee when the vehicle sells, not before.

The idea that they could promise to sell your car for whatever price you happened to pick out of the air is pretty incredulous.

Never pay money for promises.

[samchoi604]

Obvious scam is obvious.

[MRQturbo]

if they can guarantee that they WILL sell your car at full asking price...shouldn't they just pay you that full amount right away since they are so confident in selling the car and should just buy it right away from you....its a scam like everyone else has said...

[TripEEE]

I actually did one of these when I was selling my Jeep. The one I did was only $50. I thought it was a scam at first but thought I'd give it a shot. The one I did lists it on over 30 different sites. I was trying ebay and craigslist on my own and got a few hits there but no buyers. Then I got a call from a guy that found my car on some random site. After all the ebay/craigslist listings, the one from the random site was where my car was finally sold.
I guess it's a gamble, but it worked out for me.

[Andy M]

I think you should just use Escrow. It's just about $25 in fees and I think it's worth the peace of mind.

Tell them that you will release the funds in Escrow when the vehicle is sold for the price that they promised. If they reject the idea of using Escrow, you know they're a scammer. If they're not, then it's your gain. At the worst case, they're a scammer and you lose the $25 in fees from Escrow.

[Slalom]

Sounds like a variation on the "advance fee fraud". If they are asking you to send the money by mail, check with the United States Postal Inspection Service. They should be able to tell you if there is a prosecution (not an investigation) underway. They also have a great website on various frauds (postalinspectors.uspis.gov).

[Darin911]

Bin it's not a scam do it!!!!!!!!

[Professor///M]

Do you really need to ask?

Wants $199 from the SELLER... and guaranteeing full price sale...

When does anyone pay full price for a car?


If it doesn't make sense, it's not true. It's a scam. Why don't you sell it to the Nigerians on Ebay, I'm sure they'll pay like 2-3K MORE for your car... because they need it really fast because their daughter's broke down yesterday

[m42stanle]

Originally Posted by mohammadz

I'm Selling my vehicle online right now, an I got a phone call from a financing company. They claim that my car will be sold at full asking price, guaranteed. All I need to do is a 199 dollar deposit which will be refunded. They claim that they make their money from financing bad credit individuals, and charge a high interest rate.

I figured it was a relatively cheap experiment so long as it's not a scam. I was considering dropping my asking price by 3000 for a quick sale.

It's absolutely a scam - I was bombarded by these calls when I was trying to sell my RSX back in the summer. They seem to harvest most of their numbers from Auto Trader and milk as many people as they can before their domain gets shut down. Almost always a variation on that second chance financing theme, "I've got buyers waiting to pay full price for your car - but to sell it we need to have it listed in our directory and it will cost you $X - all I need is a credit card number and we can get started" They throw up a half-assed "shell" web site and point you to it to help with the illusion that they're running a legit company.

If you're bored and/or feel collecting some good karma, grab as much info as you can from them (unlikely they'll give you a contact phone number but try anyway) and then report it to phonebusters and the ISP who is hosting their web site. I did this and got two of them shut down & all their accounts terminated within 24 hrs.

[bigjilm]

Scam, scam, scam. Guaranteed, it's a scam.

[BenTrovato]

I had one of these calls for $499 a few months ago. Ironically, the BMW dealership told me about this system saying it was a scam. I never tried it myself so I can't say whether it was or wasn't.

[jaguar36]

Wise man say: If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.