Read This To Avoid Being Scammed! Car Platform That Verified Car Seller Can Solve This Problem

Recently, the Bukit Aman commercial crime investigation department director Mohd Kamarudin Md Din released a statement claiming that over RM5.4 million was scammed through online car sales in the first five months this year, with 461 cases reported.

The cases increased by 94.5 percent from 237 cases reported in the same period last year, amounting to RM1.4 million losses. For 2020, a total of 678 cases reported involving RM5.9 million losses. It increases 22.8 percent from 552 cases reported in 2019, with a RM3.2 million loss.

That is an alarming situation, especially in hard times like this; scammers heartlessly cheated off their victims' hard-earned money.

Here we will let you know why so many victims got cheated buying cars from online platforms? And how to avoid it?

First of all, most of the victims fell prey to scammers that posed as a car seller or car dealer on some social media marketplace. Social media platform provides the best and effective way to sell any products, including vehicles. Most importantly, it is also free unless one decides to boost its advertisement to reach more potential buyers. That is why there are many car dealers attracted to advertise their vehicles on it.

As most of these platforms only require you to input an email address, while some require a phone number, this is one of the critical weaknesses of these social media marketplaces because anyone can become a seller. It is a massive loophole for scammers to access. Anyone, including scammers, can easily advertise on its platform, as it requires no identification check.

How scammers’ pull out a scam?

All the scammers need to do is copy a random company’s name or a car dealership’s name and download the photos from any car dealers’ advertisement to scam its victims’ hard-earned money.

However, having a social media account doesn’t mean scammers can scam their victim successfully. They still need to have a bank account to get their money. Therefore, most scammers use a third-party bank account, an account that they will pay a third party to open, and the person will hand over the account and ATM card to the scammer in exchange for some ‘rental fees’ from RM 500 to RM 1,000 monthly.

With a third-party account, a scammer can start an illegal business. They will pretend as sellers by advertising photos that they stole online and sell the advertised vehicles at a low price, usually lower than the market rate. They will claim that they need cash, a customs exemption unit, a seizure unit by the authorities, or illegally smuggled in from Singapore, Thailand and Langkawi.

Apart from a deposit, they will also ask their victims to pay processing fees, road tax and grants. Some even will say it is the under-table money for the authorities. Once payment made, they will withdraw the money and vanish.

Although the Royal Malaysia Police had tried very hard to catch these scammers, most of the time, the police officers can only capture the third-party account holders and not the scammers.

So how can we avoid being scammed from purchasing any vehicles online?

Buyers were advised to use trusted online car listing platforms, like Caricarz.com, to avoid being a scam victim. Only platforms that screened through every user who wants to create an account can avoid such scam.

Caricarz.com only accepts agent, salespersons, and dealers with actual company registration and real identification card (IC) to register an account on its platform. Caricarz.com will also send its personnel to meet them in person or through video conferencing (mainly due to the movement control order); only the person can successfully create a verified account.

The personnel will scrutinize all the required documents for registration, and once everything is in order, they will notify the team at Caricarz.com to activate its account. Due to this stringent process, Caricarz.com have managed to keep a record of zero scams on their platform. Scammers would stand no chance of preying for their victims on this platform with such a system.

Bear in mind, if the deal is too good to be true, most probably it’s a scam! So be extra careful.