PSA for Anyone Buying a Used Car privately : We Almost Got Burned by a Deal That Looked Too Good to Be True!
I wanted to share our recent experience buying a car privately through Facebook Marketplace because there were SO many red flags that we only pieced together as we looked closer. Hopefully, this helps someone else avoid a potentially expensive mistake.
We came across a car listed at what seemed like an amazing price. The seller had a CARFAX report and service records, and on the surface, everything looked reasonably legitimate. They also wanted to meet at a public place, so we initially didn’t think too much of it.
But once we started dealing with the seller in person, things got strange.
Here are all the red flags we noticed:
1. The person messaging us wasn’t the person who showed up.
The person communicating with us through Facebook Marketplace was a man. However, when we arrived for the meetup, a woman showed up instead. She told us the car belonged to her husband.
That alone doesn’t prove anything, but it was an unexpected change that we hadn’t been told about beforehand.
2. The licence plate registration didn’t match the story.
The vehicle’s plate was registered in Cambridge, but the woman told us they lived in Woodbridge. When we asked about the discrepancy, she explained that the vehicle was registered that way to save on insurance.
That explanation raised questions for us, especially given everything else that followed.
3. We asked to see her driver’s licence, but she wouldn’t show it.
When we asked her to show us her driver’s licence, she opened her purse, and I could clearly see an Ontario driver’s licence or ID inside. However, she quickly closed her purse and said she’d left her licence at home.
Why open your purse, have the ID seemingly right there, and then say you left it at home?
At that point, we were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the situation.
4. There was no clear verification that the person selling the car was authorized to sell it.
Since the person who showed up wasn’t the man we’d been communicating with, and she claimed the vehicle belonged to her husband, we had no satisfactory way of verifying the ownership and her authority to complete the sale.
5. The seller’s circumstances made it harder to know what to make of the situation.
She appeared to be pregnant, but we obviously couldn’t verify anything about her personal circumstances. That wasn’t proof of anything, and I don’t want to speculate. The issue was that we were already encountering several inconsistencies and still couldn’t verify the basic details of the transaction.
6. The CARFAX report and service records initially made the deal look legitimate.
This is the part that really got us. The seller had documentation, so we could easily have assumed everything was fine and proceeded with the purchase.
But something just didn’t feel right.
7. The biggest red flag: an outstanding lien!
We decided to spend an additional $90 to investigate and obtain lien records through CARFAX and the appropriate government records.
Good thing we did!
We discovered an outstanding lien registered against the vehicle, with the record indicating it remained in place until 2029.
Imagine paying thousands of dollars for a car and later discovering that there’s still a debt secured against it. Depending on the circumstances, that could turn into a serious financial and legal headache.
We walked away.
Looking back, any one of these things might have had an innocent explanation. But when you put them all together — the different person showing up, the story about the husband, the registration discrepancy, the refusal to show ID, and finally the outstanding lien — there were simply too many unanswered questions to take the risk.
I’m not claiming I can prove the seller intended to scam us. But the experience was suspicious enough that we decided it wasn’t worth proceeding.
Lessons learned for anyone buying a used car privately in Ontario:
Don’t rely solely on a seller-provided CARFAX report.
Run your own up-to-date lien search using the VIN.
Verify the seller’s identity and confirm they’re the registered owner or are properly authorized to sell the vehicle.
Make sure the vehicle’s ownership and registration details make sense.
Don’t accept explanations about registration or insurance without independently verifying the relevant details.
Never let an unusually good price pressure you into rushing a purchase.
If anything feels off, walk away. You don’t owe anyone a sale.
That $90 could have saved us thousands of dollars and a lot of stress.
Please do your due diligence before buying a used car privately. A public meetup, paperwork, and a seemingly good deal are not guarantees that everything is legitimate.
Has anyone else encountered something similar on Facebook Marketplace in Ontario? I’d be interested to hear your experiences, and hopefully this post helps someone else spot the warning signs before it’s too late.