Be cautious when you are buying your new car, there is a lot of fraud about these days.  From rolled back odometer fraud at your local car dealer (yes it does happen at local car dealers more often than you think – especially at smaller used car dealers) and scamers in your local paper to internet fraud.  There are a lot of car buying scams out there that you need to be aware of so you don’t get taken.

Rule number 1, cars and trucks are expensive items and so they are very appealing to scammers, so be wary.  This applies regardless if you are buying or selling.  Do your homework so you know what is a fair or good price to pay for the vehicle.  A good place to start is with Edmunds.com which has a feature called TMV (True Market Value).  This is what one should expect to pay for the vehicle and takes rebates and other discounts into consideration.  If you are looking at a used car a good place to start is Ebay Motors which will show you exactly what a certain model is selling for with a search under completed listings (keep in mind, cars of rare or limited quantities will provide fewer comparisons).

Another great website to use is Consumer Reports.  This will give you true, unadulterated customer opinions and reviews including maintenance and costs of ownership.  Never, never ask the car salesperson if a car you are looking at has great reviews – their reply will be it always does (remember they are trying to sell you the car).  Consumer Reports gives you a completely unbiased opinion.  When you have narrowed down the choice of vehicles you are interested in to only a few than you need to run a CarFax history check on them.  CarFax gives you a choice of a one time report or unlimited reports for 1 month.  Do the unlimited option as you will probably need it for more than one vehicle and it is worth it.

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