I grew up in the car business. My father was a car dealer since 1952 (RIP)
As a kid in school, I helped out around the car lot, cleaning, fixing cars, graduated to mechanical work, body work, welding, fabrication, customizing car, bikes, trucks vans… We bought and sold anything we didn’t have to feed.
About 1985, Dad retired and I went on to pursue other interests but always loved vintage cars and bikes. Among the many cars I bought and sold one of my favourites was a 1990 Porsche 911 (internally known as 964)/
964 IMO was the best 911. It was only produced for a few years. After the 80s 911’s the 964 moulded the bumpers into the car, rather than having them look like an “add on” after the fact you know? But the 964 also retained the front fenders that gave the 911 it’s iconic silhouette. After 964, the shaved off those beautiful fenders and made the front “slant nosed” which, in my opinion made it look like most other cars. Then they changed the headlights to some sort of Japanese style headlights, then they changed the iconic AIR COOLED 911motor to the current liquid cooled versions, which to me, entirely lost the point of the iconic 911.
964 blended the best of those two worlds. The air cooled motor, the signature front fenders but smoothed out the car giving it more aerodynamic, finished look (not like someone just decided to stick the bumpers on afterwards) It was my favourite of all the 911’s though the years.
it’s the only car my kids would wash!
I bought the car right, in about 2013. Drove it for several years, just as a summer car meanwhile the value of these cars was increasing like crazy. I think I paid about $22,000 CDN. Three years later, IF you could find one, they were asking in the from 50 to well over 100k for some (US).
Nice car but doubling my money in 3 years, I’m not rich like Jay Leno who buys cars to put them in a museum you know? I wasn’t going to turn my nose up at doubling my money! So I decided to sell it.
Carfax is a Scam!
I dunno how these people are allowed to be in business. They never see a car, they have no shops, they are not licensed by anyone, never see any of the cars they label, they claim they get their information from 1000s of sources.
I had a beautiful 1990 C2 911 (964) Porsche. The car was immaculate. I had it appraised for insurance purposes by the Porsche club of Canada president who has been appraising Porsche cars for over 30 years. The appraisal was so detailed, going down to the “thickness of the paint”! The appraisal said it was a wonderful car with nothing more than normal wear and tear.
I had the car for 3 years and decided to sell it since the value went up. Once on the market, people pulled a "Carfax" report that said the car was totalled, wrecked and salvaged on January 1st 1994 in Farmingville NY.
I protested and in spite of all my evidence to the contrary, Carfax would not remove their black mark against my property, thus diminishing it's value.
This news made it to popular German car forum, "Renslist" where there was huge talk about this car saying "don't buy it, it was a wreck"
I spent a year trying to clear the car’s report from this crackerjack company.
I called the cops in NY who were nice enough to write me a letter saying there was never any report of a 911 Porsche being wrecked in Famingville NY on or about New years day (it’s cold and icy there that time of year! Who'd be driving a practically new 911 in those conditions?)
CF says they get their info from 1000s of sources, I asked them to provide me with ONE such piece of information, they could not. They said that’s our information and they they were not obliged to proved the sources of their said information. Well, if you are diminishing MY property, one would think that you'd have have a viable claim! This is slanderous against my property!
I contacted the local library in Farmingville NY and researched all the local newspapers. Nothing about such a wreck which apparently involved not only the Porsche but another car as well.
Surely such a dramatic crash of such a beautiful car on New Years day in a small town, as well, a TWO CAR CRASH, would have been recorded by someone! You'd think it would be front page news!
None of this story could be collaborated!
I contacted the local fire dept to see if they had any such records, nothing.
Yet of the "1000s of reliable sources" of information Carfax uses, they could not provide me even one piece of hard evidence!
So I purchased similar reports from several carfax competitors. None of those said anything at all wrong with the car.
I myself had been in the car business for many years. My father was in the car business before me. We've bought and sold 1000s of cars, trucks, bikes etc over the years up till the late 80s early 90s.
My mechanic was a specialized Porsche mechanic tuning GT3 Cup Cars. He had built 911 racing motors. He new my car inside and out and could not find anything wrong with it, let alone evidence that it was once "totalled and salvaged!"
A "salvaged car" would have to say this in the title. My title was clear!
In Canada we have a seller report from the government. I paid for one of those too that said the car was clear.
I took the car to our local Porsche dealer in Toronto. Told them the story. I said I wanted them to go over the car with a fine tooth comb, list any findings, put that on their letterhead as evidence that it a good car, which they did. They found nothing more than normal war and tear on replaceable things like brakes and windshield wiper blades.
But no matter what physical evidence I produced to carfax, they would not remove their bogus statement from my property!
Conversely, I've also heard that many "carfax reports" claim the cars are good, where they have actually been smashed and won’t even drive straight!
Finally I contacted the Attorney General office in NY who only came back with "this is a civil matter" aka, it's up to you to sue them. What's the AG's office for then anyway!? What are those people getting paid for!? I demand this company cease and desist any further business! AG did not help.
After fighting this for a year, I became very despondent, thinking I would never be able to sell this car with such damning report.
Prior to this, I never even knew who carfax was having been away from the car business since the 90s.
Then an "Angel" appeared. (Angel from HELL) Guy called himself Steve Polk Jr. He called me from a company and told me saying the was selling high end cars and they'd love to sell my car on consignment for me. They had a killer website that was apparently endorsed by a race car driver. They had 1000s of pictures of cars for sale, cars they had sold. They told me for $500.00 (US) ONE TIME FEE, they would;
list my car on 1000s of auto websites around the world
they said they deal with all the calls and potential customers
they said they would finance the customer
deal with the shipping worldwide
no commissions, just the one time fee
I was hesitant since I never heard of them before.
They claimed they sold 16,000 vehicles worldwide each year!
They said they even sell warranties for cars for added buyer confidence and combine the cost of the warranties in the financing!
and that they could finance anybody!
AND they badgered me for weeks! NON STOP!
They called me sometimes 3 times A DAY asking for my listing!
They would even ask way more for the car than I was asking so the $500.00 was “irrelevant”.
Finally I caved, gave them my credit card number, they took the 500 dollars (US) but my car was not listed on any websites, not even their own. I kept calling them asking them what was going on with no replies. After they did not reply, again I called the Attorney general office who would not help at all, again saying this was a civil matter!
About a week after that, the entire website was GONE!
Look on the AG website, you can see they claim to deal with unscrupulous businesses but they don't! I really don't know what they get paid for!? Like politicians!
When I realized I got scammed, I looked up more info on Carfax found that the owner was "Steve Polk Jr" (least that's the name he/she goes by) Ya thats right! The same asshole who scammed me out of the 500 dollars (US) was apparently also the owner of “Carfax”!!
Holy shit!
As I’m writing this, I searched this Polk”a” fella again and just found out that he SOLD his nice company for 1.4 BILLION US!!!!!
https://eu.dispatch.com/story/business/2013/06/11/michigan-based-owner-carfax-sold/24099057007/
The company claims revenues of about 400 million US / year!
God Bless America! It’s assholes like this that give the Country a bad name.
The whole thing was a set up! They target high end car sellers, make up a story to diminish the value of the cars, then offer the solution, taking more money from people with "high end cars"
Same as the Satanists say there’s a killed virus on the loose BUT if you take our Experimental injections, you will be SAVED!
They even had the balls to call back after offering a similar service. Claimed they were a different company! Said “Sorry you went through that but this is not us! We’re legit!” I said, you're likely the most honourable person on earth but I'll never trust another sales call like this in my life, even if you were the Queen of England because your industry wrecked it for me. They never bothered me after that.
What if they were successful in diminishing the value of high end cars, then one of their own people goes and buys the car for the lower price, then they resell it, changing their report to "its a great car" so they can make 1000s of markup on each car. Then they launder the profits though their own business again!?
Carfax are crooks and need to be shut down and their people jailed.
The 500.00 lost was nothing compared to the amount of money I lost because they diminished the value of my property. In the end I sold the Porsche to someone who knows Porsches and also realized that Carfax was a scam so he paid no attention to it but I could have got a lot more for the car had it not been for the scammers. I sold it way too cheep for 31k but could have got a lot more for it. Should have been at least 50-60k! Not to mention the year of stress and anguish and time lost! This consumed myself and my family. The whole thing really stressed my wife out (RIP sweetheart).
I never talked about it publicly at the time because I had already lost enough value of my property but now that the car is gone, maybe I can help others realize the truth since this is “I WANT THE TRUTH” platform.
This whole thing happened over 10 years ago and, as you can see, it still haunts me today! How can those people still be in business? They never see one car they label!
They are not structural engineers, or body shops or mechanics. They have no shops. No one ever sees a car they label!
If you took one car to 20 different mechanics, you'd get 20 different opinions of what was wrong with it. That's bad enough since they would all be licensed mechanics, with shops that actually see the cars but "Carfax" is not licensed, never sees a car, have no inspection shops, nothing. it's a scam.
It's like me telling you you have something wrong with your health, never having met you and me not being a doctor.
It's like Bill Gates practicing medicine without a licence. It's ALL COMPETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT!
Yet people believe it because they are so big. The monopoly they have forces car dealers to have “the carfax” because they just want to sell cars and a good report from a “reputable firm” carries lots of weight, right?
Same as the main stream media telling people they will surely die from the covix, or the how many “strains” of the covey were they up to? Now their story changed to the Birdflu. They already have your injections ready well before they announced the Bird flu, which apparently effects cows, sheep, pigs and YES YOU TOO because you must be a chicken right!? Makes sense to me!
This carfax thing was one of the many things in my life that made me completely skeptical about everything. I question EVERYTHING and believe NOTHING coming from government!
My father never trusted doctors. Never saw the inside of a hospital till his dying day at 82. Even at that, I feel the hospital killed him but that’s another story.
“the Haunted House”
What if someone said your house was build on an ancient burial ground and it was haunted and nobody would buy your house? What if you had a huge mortgage on it and this claim diminished your property value so much that you couldn’t afford to sell it! This could bankrupt someone!
If it was just some drunker off the street saying this, you’d pay him no mind BUT if a huge organization said this, like the WHO for instance. If they made up a story, same as their covey stories, most would believe it! Most think its a reliable source and the governments go to lengths now to shut down ANYTHING but THIER stories! No other option or opinion could be true!
This is the power of the mass media.
Carfax is doing the same with cars and it needs to be stopped.
This was one more nail in the coffin of why I don’t trust anything. Not doctors, not the government. Trust with me is so small. If I trust you, you must be something real special.
King Philip of Macedon (Ancient Macedonia) told his son Alexander the Great’
Trust No One
and
Learn to be alone
