Over the last few months, Hagerty has re-published an article warning classic and vintage car owners about the propensity for being taken as total suckers by unscrupulous dealers and consigners. At first, I thought - how on Earth could so many people, who were presumably of some means, be taken advantage of so easily?
One of the biggest scandals in recent months is the implosion of CPR Classics, a highly-regarded Porsche restoration and consignment service that apparently just started straight-up taking people's cars under the pretense of paying them (hilarious!), selling the cars without titles, pocketing the cash, and then just not answering their phones. And very few of the scam victims even bothered to drive over to the shop and see whether their $150,000 911 still existed. Pardon my vulgarity, but WTF?
And if you really want to get into a rabbit hole about how incestuous the industry is about protecting bad actors and hiding the fact that some fairly intelligent people have been scammed, you should try and click on this link to a 1972 911S that BaT listed on behalf of CPR before being exposed as marketing a car that didn't exist and CPR had no right to sell. If you click that link, does BaT ask you to log in? And then when you do, does the URL take you no where? Yeah, me too - you can get more details here on the Early 911S Registry, which thankfully, hasn't been shut down by BaT. It still appears on Classic.com, but again, BaT has obviously scrubbed the link and gone to great lengths to make sure you don't realize just how little due diligence they actually do.
With friends like that at BaT, how is anyone really safe when you let outside companies who have dealers interests at heart run the show?
How should you buy a vintage car sight-unseen
As someone who has bought numerous cars sight-unseen from sellers who I just generally trusted, it caused some self-reflection. Basically, I realized I have an informal checklist that is on autopilot in these situations. The steps include:
1.) I'd like multiple angles of photos beyond what was included in your listing.
2.) I want to talk on the phone, at length, about key history details and potential issues.
3.) I want to dig through any records you have of the car before I commit.
Now, here's the thing: as a seller, this can feel like a burden. But I always commit to sending a deposit before any of this commences as an act of good faith and for ensuring the seller gets something for their time if I walk. That's only fair. This approach has yet to cause any heartburn on the part of people I'm considering buying a car from, and if I get two out of three - usually multiple phone calls and some photos of the specific areas I asked for (service records are a bonus) - I'm content to move forward.
According to Hagerty, some people were wiring thousands and thousands of dollars without doing any of this, and being snookered by photos that the scammer simply grabbed from an eBay or Bring A Trailer listing. I never realized it was that easy!
Why a records-driven approach is better for buyers - and sellers
Of course, this is why we provide the solution we do, which is a records-driven approach to car selling. Users can document their work and receipts for as long as they own the car, and then create a for sale listing that sucks all of those records into one easily shareable ad. If an owner is tracking their investment and overall curation of a car, it demonstrates a track record of ownership that is near impossible to fake. And since The Common Gear provides full access control where your records are only visible to the people you agree to share the listing with, it greatly reduces the potential for fakery (as opposed to every Bring a Trailer listing that is still visible years after the car has sold.)
When you buy a car, it's a commitment on both sides. And while we have all bought the occasional project with zero paper trail for peanuts because, well, who doesn't love a basketcase, that's a very different proposition than spending $20, $30, or $100,000 of your own hard-earned cash on a supposedly well-loved car.
If we all demand more when we decide to buy an enthusiast vehicle, the ability for scam artists to take advantage of people in this hobby will become far less appealing.