Victim Location 55079
Type of a scam Phishing
I listed my car on craigslist. Was contacted shortly thereafter by a person claiming their relative was interested, and could I provide my email address. I did. Relative wrote back and asked for more info on the car. I provided the info. Relative then wrote back the following:
"Sounds perfect, I would like to come and see it before I move forward but I would like to make sure the vehicle and all is OK and legit and for that I need to see a recent report from https://www.historycarfax.com/ .because in the same way this is what my lender asked for to be able to obtain the loan faster than usual. i’d just feel safer about getting a vehicle with an official report. So let me know if you can get it. Thank you"
The grammar, content ("lender requires it"), and "historycarfax.com" similarity to the well-known "carfax.com" all seemed suspect. A google search of "historycarfax" revealed nothing–also suspect. The historycarfax.com site itself seemed somewhat legit, but had minimal information. However, it did have contact information, including an address and phone number. Google searches of both of those pieces of information revealed the address is tied to several other (virtually identical) websites: carhistoryfax.com, autosmartfax.com, and bikesfax.com. The phone number search also revealed a connection to vincheckup.com. Plugging each of those back into https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker/us revealed many complaints.