Financial IQ: Used Car Selling Safety Tips

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There are a lot of good deals in buying used cars.  You can get as much as 30% savings when buying a 12-months used car, instead of buying a brand new one.


One of my favorite ways to dispose of vehicles is to sell them after only a few years of use, so that I can use the money to buy a new vehicle. The front-page news in recent weeks on grizzly murders of used car traders is shocking to people like me now planning to sell my Innova and Revo vans in order to buy new vehicles.


Here are some used car trading tips:


• When contacted by buyers by phone or through the Internet, always make the effort to get their address or their telephone numbers that you can call back and verify to see whether they are who they claim they are. Checking their names on Facebook or other social sites would be helpful.


• When meeting them at your house, always get some people to witness the meeting. Although having their faces captured on a CCTV camera is ideal — if you have one — getting someone to photograph them secretly during the meeting would do no harm (It is your house anyway). While doing so would make you look paranoid, it is better to be paranoid than dead. While they are inspecting the car, you can take pictures of them, doing so by explaining that you are just taking picture of a car you hate to miss.


• When they want to do a test drive, insist that they leave government identification cards like driver’s license, SSS, PhilHealth, gun license and other cards that cannot be faked. If they come by car, insist they leave it behind and check if it is really registered under their name and not a stolen one. If they come by two, ask one of them to stay in your place.


• The test drive should only be done within your subdivision or places you are familiar with. These must be places where people abound. Watch out if there are vehicles following you. Always do the test drive at daytime. Meeting them at night or outside your home is out of the question except if you are acquainted with them.


• If you really must meet them outside your house, do so in a place you know has CCTV cameras and have a companion in a back-up car take their pictures (if the glasses of your backup car is tinted). Always bring a back-up car to tag you along during the test drive and make them aware you are bringing one. Again, this is a paranoid act, but better paranoid than sorry.


• Lastly, in these dangerous times and if you have a choice, sell your cars to friends and acquaintances or through referrals from them; and not to total strangers to lessen the exposure and risk. We always tell clients that in the used car business, it is the trust that matters more than the cars.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=650730&publicationSubCategoryId=82