CARFAX / SGS Scam

[etlsport]

i hear ya.. my girlie recently bought a honda del sol and didnt bring it to me to look at first because the carfax(provided by the dealer) checked out 1 owner clean as a whistle.. when she got it home, i looked at the headlights and they looked a little different so i looked closer, touched the drivers side corner and the lens fell off of the housing!... then looked at the badly curb rashed rims, and noticed red paint on them, so i looked at the key hole for the trunk, theres bad overspray on that as well, various other small problems, i tracked down the one owner... turns out it was my moms neighbors sister (go figure!) talked to her and she had been in an accident that destroyed most of the drivers side, so the whole car had been repainted then sold once the work was done.. lucky for us the car runs great and the paint job is very well done minus the overspray

[transio]

etlsport,

I'm not talking about a CARFAX report, but an on-site inspection and road test that they sell for $100.

Steve

[LANINJA]

what a heart breaker...i believe carfax only has info if the former owner reports it to the insure company...


so carfax has a buy it back policy does it? i always wondered to what extent this covers...

[etlsport]

oh, sorry, didnt know they were two different things.. either way, i always kinda relied on carfax to confirm that i was getting a good car... got one more car to buy/oversee the buying of guess i wont put so much stock in the carfax now

[WyrreJ]

oh, sorry, didnt know they were two different things.. either way, i always kinda relied on carfax to confirm that i was getting a good car... got one more car to buy/oversee the buying of guess i wont put so much stock in the carfax now

You can usually trust carfax if the report says the car has problems - hardly anyone tells likes that make the car look worse than it is. But you can't trust them if it says the car has no problems because people will often lie to make the car look better than it is.

[kpaske]

I would consider contacting the BBB and possibly small claims court about these folks, although I can't say I believe much would come of it. It's a shame that we don't have any better method of recourse when a business fails to provide the service that was promised, but unfortunately it seems to happen all the time. The BBB should have the power to revoke and or deny business licenses and your record should follow you no matter what state you apply in. Otherwise, what good are they?

[WyrreJ]

The BBB is entirely funded by "member" merchants. BBB members get different treatment than non-members - complaints against members expire after some number of months even with no satisfactory resolution and are completely wiped from the record, unresolved complaints against non-members do not expire.

As often as not, the BBB just uses complaints against non-members as a shakedown tactic to get the business to pay up and become a "member in good standing."

So in some ways they are a bit like carfax, if the BBB records indicate complaints against a company, chances are that the company is scummy. But if they indicate a clean record, it means nothing.

I learned all this about 15 years ago when I had a problem with a BBB "member in good standing" and just got the run around from the BBB. Somehow the BBB has managed a PR campaign on the level of deBeers, totally hoodwinking a large portion of the US population. Kind of impressive actually, if it weren't so scummy.

[transio]

what a heart breaker...i believe carfax only has info if the former owner reports it to the insure company...

The CARFAX Inspection service is an on-site inspection. It is not related to their report service.