Auto Dealer Fraud – Auctions Reality – BMW X5

We face thousands of partially fixed cars daily and we want to share our knowledge with you. Welcome to our new rubric “Auto Dealer Fraud – Auctions Reality”. Here, we will cover the most striking cases and show you the other side of salvage auto auctions.

The First Appearance on Auto Auction

The first time, BMW X5 (VIN: 5UXCR4C05L9B21761) appeared at Copart auction in Florida on 02/11/2020 with Front End and Side damage.

It was sold on its first attempt 9 days later for 23,700 USD (not including fees). Here, how it looked like on its first auction appearance:

More photos

The car was auctioned by State Farm Insurance, before the car was owned by Braman BMW – an auto dealer from West Palm Beach, Florida. It was most likely used as a courtesy car, as evidenced by a sticker on the rear window of the car and was most likely broken, by one of the Braman BMW customers.

The Second Appearance

Unfortunately, the information about the buyer is unknown, but we can say with confidence that the purpose of the purchase was: quick patching of holes related to the appearance and putting up the car for a second auction at Copart.

In such cases, Copart just silently accepts broken cars, and this episode is not an exclusion. The company took BMW X5 that was sold a month ago, as there are no violations of Copart’s policy and anyone can sell on Copart. So, a car pop up at the auction a month and a few days later the date of the first appearance not on West palm beach auction, but on Copart Miami auction with a different lot number (35140440). And everything would be fine, but Copart does not allow finding sold cars through a site search by VIN, which is a unique value to connect the same vehicle with different lots. Sometimes cars remain accessible via direct links, but unfortunately, an ordinary buyer or auction participant can not know about it. Now then, here is what it looks like now.

More photos

As you can see, the car is not repaired, but only patched up, and also, the sticker that evidenced that it was a Braman dealership car disappeared. As a result, the second auction ended with the difference in the price of 10,800 USD (23,700 USD for the first sale and 34,500 for the second).

How to Avoid Auto Auction Fraud?

1) Try to collect the maximum information about your car before placing bids. Use the search for a sold vehicle sale history.
2) Ask questions to your brokers and dealers. In the case of fraud, it is easier to appeal to lies that were said than to something which remained untold.
3) Pay attention to the details. Unrealistic damage in the photo e.g dents and bends in the body, falling of lights or mirrors, missing parts, protruding pieces of doors, a bumper or roof may indicate that the car has already been repaired and the actual damage is hidden.

Stay tuned!

BMW X5 for sale
Salvage Vehicles for Sale

You may also like...

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *