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Don't get scammed when buying a second hand car

A father, Kevin, wanted to buy a late model vehicle for his daughter - one not manufactured before 2010.

A dealer offered them a clean, low mileage vehicle that seemed to be in excellent condition.

It was a 2010 model, and it was even the right colour.

The price was a little higher than Kevin would have liked, but all things considered, this appeared to be an excellent buy.

While his daughter went off with the dealer to test drive the car, he decided to do a quick check – just to see whether the price being asked was reasonable.

He took out his smartphone, opened the TransUnion Car Value app, which he had downloaded when he first started looking around for a car, entered the vehicle’s registration number and requested a Car Value report. It cost him R10.

The report came back with a retail price that was considerably lower than the price being asked by the dealer. In fact, the car value retail price for that specific vehicle was substantially lower than Kevin himself had expected to pay.

Curious, he then used the Car Value app to purchase a Car Verification report for the vehicle. Cost R140.

The verification report came back with the shocking information that the 2010 vehicle his daughter was currently test driving was in fact a 2008 model.

Even worse, it appeared that car might have been involved in a serious accident as the verification report indicated that there had been a large insurance claim on the vehicle.

Thanks to the R140 invested in the car verification report, Kevin and his daughter were able to walk away from what would have been an expensive mistake had they bought the vehicle.

The TransUnion Car Value app was developed by TransUnion Auto Information Solutions specifically to meet the needs of South African consumers.

It enables consumers to obtain values and other key identification and verification information for specific vehicles – rather than just generic makes and models - virtually at the push of a button.

By downloading the app to their smartphones (those using the Windows® operating system, such as the Nokia Lumia®, as well as Apple®, Android® and most Blackberry® devices) and registering, consumers have immediate access to TransUnion’s vast database obtained from some 30 000 records received from approximately 1100 dealers across the country every month.

To download the app, go to your smartphone’s app store, and search “Car Value”.

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