- I like Amazon’s My Garage feature. You enter the make and model of your car, so when you look for parts and accessories, it guarantees it’ll be the correct part and have the proper fit.
- New federal rule bans “junk fees” on hotels and live event tickets
- Ever booked a hotel room for $200 only to be surprised by an extra $40 “resort fee” at checkout? A new Federal Trade Commission rule aims to put a stop to such surprise charges by banning so-called junk fees on short-term lodging as well as on tickets to live events.
- How reliable is CarFax? I will say only as reliable as the person inputting the data. Here’s a real-life example that happened to me. One of the cars I was looking at seemed almost new and had low miles. The photos looked great. CarFax said it was in a minor accident, and the airbags didn’t deploy. What does “minor accident” mean? Per CarFax, you’ll see below it says, “Minor damage is usually cosmetic, including dents or scratches to the vehicle body.” OK. I’m reasonably led to believe nothing big.
Curious, I checked out the details of the damage reported. Minor damage, per CarFax, makes me think it was nothing but a fender bender. No biggie, right?
For the heck of it, I decided to search Google using the VIN. Interestingly, the results are from several Ukrainian car auction websites. Per CarFax, the car was assembled in the U.S. and has never left the country. Chrome translates the page, and it’s just a place for Ukranians to buy wrecked American cars to ship and sell there. But here are the photos of the car with “minor damage.” A picture is worth a thousand words. But I get to find out what the dealer paid for it at auction.
Here’s their buyback guarantee. I bought the car but only found those websites and photos two days after my purchase. I wonder if I qualify for their Buyback Guarantee? Any lawyers out there? Was I misled by the CarFax report?
What is the CARFAX Buyback Guarantee?
The CARFAX Buyback Guarantee helps protect consumers from unknowingly buying a vehicle with a DMV-issued title brand, such as Salvage, Junk, Rebuilt, Fire, Flood, Hail, Lemon/Manufacturer Buyback, Not Actual Mileage, or Exceeds Mechanical Limits. If you find that any of these title problems were reported by a DMV and not included in a report, you may qualify.
