How to spot fraud from our friends at Hagerty

[Dick LeRoux]

We’ve recently noticed a substantial uptick in reports of online fraud in the collector car industry. Would-be buyers are potentially losing a lot of money and we want to make sure you know how to identify these scams so you can avoid them.

Here’s how the scams work: Fraudsters create legitimate-looking classic car dealership websites based off either actual dealership websites or by recreating websites of classic car dealerships that are no longer in business. On this fraudulent site, they’ll list vehicles for sale using information from a legitimate site’s inventory. These fraudulent listings will include all the details from the original dealership’s website. It can be very hard to spot differences because the scammers have taken all of the vehicle’s photos and information — often including the VIN number — from the original website. So, the website and the collector vehicle both look real. The catch? This time there’s no actual car for sale.

Below are our top tips for investigating the situation before making a purchase to avoid these scams:

1. Inspect the website. Look for frequent misspellings and inconsistent or even incoherent information.
2. Reverse image search. Right click on the image and select “Search with Google Lens.” If the same photo, or a suspiciously similar one, shows up on lots of sites, that’s a red flag.
3. Check the street view. Enter the business’s address in Google Maps. Does it look like a dealership? Does the signage match the website? What about visible phone numbers?
4. Check vehicle valuations. If you find a deal that’s too good to be true, let that be your first sign that it probably really is too good to be true.
5. Put eyes on the car. If you can’t travel to see the car, contact national car clubs or other enthusiast groups to see if someone nearby can stop in for a visit.

[Bob Andrews]

This is an ever increasing problem, and it has been increasing my business. Last spring there was a case of a guy who bought $200,000 car from unknown, trusted collector car dealer. It turned out, it was not that dealer at all. Not only had scam artists duplicated their website, they How to phone line so that customers could call a very convincing sales person. The guy that bought the car said that he’s never comfortable with dealing online, but if he can actually talk to a person, he feels comfortable. It’s the same old story: sent payment, sent shipping information, car never arrived.

I love technology, and I use it every chance I get. But you have to protect yourself as well. In the end, the safest way to buy an expensive collector car is still through the use of people. Period. I go to collector car auctions specifically to help my clients make sure that what they want to buy is as represented. Usually that just means condition evaluation, but it can mean verifying provenance, documents, numbers, etc. At least when you buy from auction, you know the car actually exists and it’s for sale. It’s another level when you buy outside of an auction: not only do you have the aforementioned, you have to make sure the car actually exists and is actually available. I get hired to be a buyers ‘boots on the ground’; I can jump on an airplane and go and verify a vehicle, and as the buyer’s advocate, I can physically put my hands on the car, and I can do a live walk around through the miracle of FaceTime.

In the end, there are two pieces to a remote transaction: condition/provenance, and the actual existence of the vehicle. Go see it in person. If you can’t, or don’t want to, invest in somebody that knows what they’re doing to do it for you. It’s cheap insurance, and it can pay huge dividends. Not only in money not lost, but even more so in the stress and anguish you avoid.