First Time Car Buyer Gets Terrible Surprise From Underhanded Dealer (Always Get the Carfax!)

Sometimes, there can really be a good deal to be found in buying a car with a rebuilt title. At the end of the day, this might just mean that minor repairs had to be done but the insurance company just didn’t want to pay for them so they decided to total the vehicle instead. However, there’s a very fine line to be walked here because purchasing a vehicle like this can come with all sorts of unwelcome surprises.

At the end of the day, someone really doesn’t have a way of knowing the extent of the damage or just how good of a repair was done, in most cases.

In other words, inexperienced buyers should always stick to vehicles with clear titles and make sure that they definitely get the Carfax, at a minimum. Bringing along someone who has been around the block a few times can be helpful as well.

This time, we dive into a situation that shows just how easy it can be to get taken advantage of when a seller doesn’t have good intentions.

When a car dealership outside Atlanta, in Decatur, GA Was ripping off its customers, a local news station decided to investigate. What they found was an entire chain of incidents where people had been receiving cars with rolled-back odometers. This is a story that’s as old as time and one that can be easily prevented if you look into a vehicle’s history before purchasing it.

When the investigation continued, the owner of the dealership denied any knowledge of what was going on as multiple cars with rolled-back odometers had been sold. Once the dealer, FMS Auto Life, had been caught, the owner even says that he fired five employees including the manager. We can’t say for sure but it seems like a fishy story that the owner of a dealership wouldn’t know that something like this was happening.

In any case, at least a couple of customers were saved as the dealership promised to buy back the vehicles that didn’t end up living up to expectations.

After seeing a case like this, we see why it’s relatively common practice that reputable dealers provide a Carfax with every vehicle that they sell. If they don’t, we would probably recommend going after the vehicle history for yourself.