Buying cars at auctions

[Panakk]

Has anyone ever used CheapCarFinder.com? What do you think of them? SCAM?? I read the testimonials and it just seems too good to be true.

LINK

 

[JulesMaximus]

If it seems too good to be true it probably is.

Many times fleet vehicles with questionable pasts will be sold at auction. These include previous rentals which may have been stolen or damaged or are just too thrashed to sell through the usual rental sales lots.

 

[C'DaleRider]

How this site works.......I don't know.......most seized/repossessed cars are auctioned off at live auctions at either auto auction houses, usually to dealers, or public auto auction houses. The ones I've been to, and I've been to more than two, have vehicles of questionable value. Consider why the vehicles are being auctioned off..........if they're from dealers taken as trade-ins, they've either got problems making them cost-prohibitive for the dealer to fix and sell at decent profit, or they're too old or high mileage for a dealer to sell on their lots.

Seized/repossessed cars are to be suspected. If you knew your car was going to be repossessed, would you be taking care of it? Probably not, since you couldn't afford the payments, you most likely aren't doing the maintenance either.

The good deals are at the dealer-only auctions......that's where all those used-car only lots get their cars......especially the buy-here/pay-here variety. The down payment the buy-here sellers ask is usually more than what they have in the vehicle, so when they have to repossess the car, they've already recouped their cost in the vehicle and no matter how badly it's been trashed, the next resale is just pure profit. Those buy-here/pay-here scam lots cater to the segment of the population that generally doesn't tend to pay their bills in a timely manner, hence the need for that sort of "financing" of the car.

That site is probably just giving you information that you can obtain by a little research on your own.......the gov't entities that auction off seized vehicles and the like advertise these sales regularly, and with a little looking around you can get on their mailing lists. The same can be done with banks, credit unions, and the like. It's no big secret.....you, too, can get this info quite easily.