If you’re a title loan lender, read on. If not, DELETE NOW.
We offer car title loans in more than a few states.
In Los Angeles, we charge 8% to as much as 18% per month on the loan principal. Depends… Heavy competition!
In Texas, it’s closer to $25/per $100 borrowed.
Every state is different.
Pretty good ROI when everything goes as we planned, right?
We ultimately repo roughly 7% and sell them in order to recover our loan principal.
Sometimes we conduct private sales. Other times, we just run them through the local auction.
Among others, we use CarGurus.com… to list cars for sale.
Lately, our CSR’s are getting calls and texts from people who claim to be interested in buying our car – but first want to see a car history report.
They request we get this “car report” from a specific website.
This website requires some info AND pay $20 by credit card for the “report.”
We empower our CSR’s with a LOT of decision making! One of our CSR’s sent this “report” to the supposed buyer but never heard back.
Weird, huh?
Well, it gets weirder.
The FTC put out the following PR piece about this very thing recently. My Team and I missed it!
This happened to us! Don’t let it happen to your car title loan business.
Here’s what the FTC suggested:
It turns out that when car sellers go to one of these websites, they’re automatically redirected to sites ending in ‘.vin’
Seems like it might be related to your car’s vehicle identification number or VIN, right?
Scammers hope you’ll think that too.
In this case, .vin is a relatively new website “domain” – like .com or .org – that groups can apply to use.
This domain was intended to be used for sites that relate to wine, since “vin” is the French word for wine, but others are not prevented from using it.
So yes, that’s a clever take on .vin for cars, yes, but you still might want to think twice if anyone asks you to do car-related business on a site ending in .vin.
So, if you are selling a car online and someone asks you to get a car history report from a specific site, ask why and think twice.
You may have no way of knowing who operates the site, especially if it’s one you’ve never heard of.
It might be a ruse to get your personal information, including your credit card account number.
It also could be a way for “lead generators” to get information, which they sell to third parties for advertising and marketing purposes.
Your best bet: play it safe.
Go to ftc.gov/usedcars for information on vehicle history reports, recall notices, and how to learn whether a car has been declared salvage.
For example, the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS) operates vehiclehistory.gov, which lists NMVTIS-approved providers of vehicle history reports. Not all vehicle history reports are available through the NMVTIS website.
Reports from other providers sometimes have additional information, like accident and repair history. Whether you’re familiar with a company or not, it’s always helpful to see what other people are saying online. Simply enter the name of the company, and words like “complaint,” “review,” “rating,” or “scam.”
Meanwhile, go make SOME SERIOUS $$$ in the car title loan business!
Starting a Title Loan Biz? Go here: https://www.AutomobilePawn.com
Jer – Trihouse 702-208-6736 Cell
Knowledge Store: Resources for Lending $$ to the Masses!
https://www.PaydayLoanIndustryBlog.com
