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When seeing advertisements involving cars for sale by the owner, you don*t have to automatically suspect. If you*re a smart customer, you'll read the whole advertisement and decide for yourself whether or not the owner is a legitimate seller selling a viable vehicle. Some advertisements will reveal themselves as just nonsense; others will involve the sale of used automobiles by dealers. Still others will be legitimate advertisements for cars offered by owners who are giving you a great deal for their used vehicle. Again, reading carefully makes all the difference.

For example, I recently was in the market for a used automobile and decided to go for one that was for sale by an owner, feeling this to be the most effective way to get a used car at a reasonable price. I found a selection of advertisements on *Craig's List*, an online community bulletin board. Amazingly, there were many choices for me, some of which looked great but weren*t in my budget, some of which were very affordable but lacked all the necessary parts (like the engine) and some that looked great enough to actually contact the owners and test drive the vehicles. Unfortunately, I was unable to get any response back from the owners, even after I called back and left an offer.

Unfortunately, I found ads on that site that really weren*t those for cars selling by owner but were ads that clearly came from dealers. Even the dealer's information was listed in the ad. I didn*t think this would be a problem, however, the information listed four contact numbers, misspelled information and the same information showed up in ads for more than one vehicle. I was looking for a 1970's Chevy truck and, in a search of over 1000 vehicles, it became obvious that the same dealer was selling many more than just one car. The same contact phone numbers and misspelled words were in each and every ad.

Personally, I think that dealer was a fraud. While the vehicles probably really existed * the photos and information were in the ad * but I could tell from the background in the photos in which the cars were shown were taken in the same place and that, unless this was a guy with a lot of vehicles, I was looking at a dealer and not just an owner trying to sell a car. This was more likely a person trying to avoid paying dealer's taxes by passing himself off as an owner. The guy wasn*t going about it in a terribly sneaky way * using the same contact information and putting all the vehicles in the same category where they would likely get picked up by skilled and attentive buyers. As one of those buyers, I felt like he was wasting not only my time, but the time of serious buyers out there, trying to get a good deal on a car. Such behavior only serves to make the whole *used car* business look bad and it's not good for those legitimate sellers out there just trying to sell a decent car.