Avoid Online Fraud By Buying And Selling On Consignment

Legitimate and fraudulent RV sales run rampant on the Internet. The key to buying or selling a used RV online is to know the scams and how to avoid them. Most online scams follow the script. Therefore, if you familiarize yourself with the most popular scams, then you can be confident that the motor home you are buying or selling isn't part of an online scheme.

RVs for Sale by Owner
When you are selling your motor home, travel trailer, toy hauler or any other kind of RV, you need to be leery of buyers communicating solely though e-mail. Unfortunately, you never know who is on the other end of an e-mail address. The person could be legitimate or they could be looking to cheat up.

Watch out for e-mail only buyers. Most people will want to see the RV before they buy it. Be leery of anyone wanting to buy it sight unseen.
Another big scam is to give you too much money. This should be a big red flag since normal people do not pay more than the asking price. However, the scam works something like this. They will send you a check/money order for more than the item. They ask you to ship it to them and say the money will cover it, and you can keep the difference. You agree only to find out later the check/money order was fraudulent.

This scam even works on people who are skeptical. They will hold the check/money order and wait for it to clear before sending the item. What they don't know is that U.S. banks can only hold a check for so long before clearing it. However, it can take longer than the allowable holding time to clear foreign banks and you are left holding the bill.

Prevent Scams with Consignment
The easiest way to guard against fraudulent activity is with a consignment lot. When a dealer sells on consignment, they are selling the RV for the owner. The dealer does not own the RV, as the person is still the owner. Therefore, you are still buying from the owner. Yet, you have the assurance of legitimacy from the dealer.

If you are selling, then allowing a consignment lot sell your RV prevents you from the hassle and headache of selling a large ticket item. You do not have to worry about bad checks, faulty financing or even weirdoes coming by your house. The dealer does all the work for you.