Fraud awareness tips for used car buyers
Fraudulence is something very prevalent in the used car market, and if you’re not much aware, you can get duped by dishonest sellers easily. If you’re looking for used cars in Abu Dhabi to buy, you can find some good dealers such as Carswitch. They are one of the biggest and most reputable vehicle dealers in the entire Middle East region. Today in this article, we will share some important safety tips to avoid fraudulence or scam while buying used cars from a dealer or private seller.
- Decide the car based on your budget, not based on the dealer’s opinion: While most dealers would simply help you to choose your car from their inventory as per your budget and specific requirement, some can try to convince you to buy another car which you never intended to buy in the first place. Some customers might get duped by believing what the salesperson says, but one needs to be stand firm in his/her decision of buying the very car he/she intended to. Dealers do that for various reasons and may not always have your best interest in mind while doing so.
So how to prevent yourself from getting duped by such dealers? It’s simple, get as much knowledge as you can get by researching on your desired car model. You can find a lot of information online and with just few clicks, you will be well-read. Make yourself aware with all this information before stepping your foot on the dealer’s location so that they can’t feed you any false data to convince you otherwise.
- Beware of “too good” offers on the internet: While buying used cars online can be very convenient and often you might even find better value than the offline platforms, it won’t be wise to believe everything you see on the net. Do not take every offer at face value, if something appears too good to be true, it almost always is. For example, if you see a car has very low mileage, and yet the selling price is great compared to the mileage – take that with a pinch of salt. Most of the time, the car has some hard-to-detect underlying fault; hence the seller is trying to get rid of it by offering such an incredible value. Always check the current market value of the car based on the model and year to know what could be a realistic price. Anything too low than the market value is a red signal to you, and you should stay clear of such offers.
- Always avoid transaction by cash: It’s a no-brainer, and it’s applicable for not only buying a used car, but for anything which involves a significant amount of money. Always do an account to account fund transfer or write a check to make sure all the money is traceable if anything.
- Before you go to the seller’s place, check the registration and registration number online: Ask the seller for the information and run them through the appropriate sites to check if everything is the same as mentioned by the seller claimed in the advertisement.
- Check the registration number to be matched on every document: In each and every paper, be it logbook, registration paper, service receipt, or anything else, always make sure to match the VIN number to be the same on the vehicle.
- Always go to see the car at the proper address mentioned on the logbook, not in any service station or any roadside place.
- Stay alert of recent frauds and keep an eye on local news and on the internet to get a clear idea of what kind of scams are going on. Do not click on a link from an unsolicited email that you were not expecting.
It’s always safer to buy a used car from a nearby dealership than any unknown private seller on the internet, especially if you want to avoid any fraud or scam. For those who are from Dubai, Carswitch is one of the major dealer networks in your region and should be a safe choice if you’re buying pre owned cars in Dubai
