Car Scams

As i keep saying - i'm not involved in buying and selling cars any more - which was a profitable hobby - but obviously i still get friends ringing me for advice.

This oldish scam seems to be cropping up again

Full details are explained in an example here ...




Basically the seller has the V5 (let's call it V5A)... puts a private registration on the car (and gets another V5 issued) then changes it back to the old original registration and gets another V5 issued (let's call it V5B)

Advertises car.

You go look at it ... you check it has no finance outstanding ... always use [www.carvertical.com] .... he shows you V5A ... you buy the car... he gives you V5A

Then the seller uses V5B to get a loan against the car (from one of those logbook loan companies) - ie after he has sold it to you. Then at some point you go to change the V5, using slip from V5A (the one he gave you) and the DVLA tells you it isn't the most recent slip, and they won't register it to you because it has outstanding finance on it

There is one very good way round this .... you do the V5 transfer online whilst you're with the seller - if it fails you tackle him about it - but what happens if he's a big fecker and by now he's got your money in his pocket or in his bank account ??

So what i used to do, and you should always do, (and this isn't talked about in the video above), is before you go to look at any car go to the government website at [vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk] and put in the vehicle reg.
In the report, towards the bottom, it says ... "Date of last V5C (logbook) issued" .. that date on the Gov website should always match exactly the date on the V5 you are shown.

If it doesn't .... walk away.

Luckily, some people actually listen to my advice - my mate remembered me telling him to do this .... today he went to look at a car ... he'd checked there was no finance (currently) on the car using CarVertical ... but date on V5 he was shown by the seller didn't match the ""Date of last V5C (logbook) issued date" " he'd got off the Gov website.

He rang me to ask me what to do ... "the seller seems soooooo genuine, nice lady" ... i told him .... "walk away", and he did.

I know this is rare and unlikely to happen to anyone here (and it's possible his seller wasn't trying to pull this particular scam i suppose) ... but there you go ... just in case.