When you sell something to someone, you might have some hopes. One of them is that nothing bad happens that could negatively affect you, especially legally. This wasn’t the case for a man who sold his junk car to a Texas man. So far, nothing seems to be bad, right? Well, the Texas man is trying to sell the junk car at an overpriced price. So he is basically scamming people. This left the original owner with no option but to warn his community. He was also, rightfully, afraid of being persuaded legally for any reason. This kind of situation reminds you not to trust anything on the marketplace.
The original owner posted two screenshots of the Texas man’s junk car shown on Facebook Marketplace. He warns people that he just sold it and that it was in rough shape, and also needed an engine. The owner should have been suspicious when the Texas man refused to sign in the buyer’s section when the owner was handing over the title. While he sold it for $700, the Texas man is now offering it for $2900. He is also not listed as the seller, which makes it more suspicious. Imagine the number of people who could have been scammed by this and ended up buying a junk car unknowingly.
People Reacting to the Texas Man’s Scam
People quickly started offering advice to the original owner on how he should proceed now that he knows what is going on. Someone told him, “Make sure you go on the Texas DMV site and state that you sold the car. I hope you took the plates off.” Another didn’t have legal advice, but they did say, “I don’t have any legal advice but it would be funny if you could find a way to get it impounded then you could go pick it up. If the current seller is trying to jump title then it legally still belongs to you. They’re probably trying to avoid paying sales tax & title transfer fees. My guess is they do this a lot.” Someone agreed with this as they wrote, “It’s common among shady unlicensed ‘dealers’ who don’t want to put their name on the car.”
Another person had the same advice of towing the car. “It’s titled in your name still for sure. Go get a certified copy and get it towed to a location of your choosing,” they said.
It seems that what the Texas man did is quite common. “Had something similar happen to me. I sold my truck on CL. Had never sold a vehicle before and didn’t actually know the process. The guy came with cash and didn’t seem shady or anything, so I signed the title like he said and that was that. A few months later I got a call from the Burleson Co Sheriffs office asking about the truck I was selling. Long story short, the guy had replaced the bad transmission and rolled back the odometer from 200k+ to about 120k miles and had sold it under my name for significantly more,” someone wrote. Hopefully, no one will get scammed.
