CarFax Consumer Fraud? You be the Judge

May 3rd, 2012. By AbiK

This kind of thing can really tick a person off—when a website does a bait and switch with you. Check out CarFax—the ‘vehicle history reports’ website. Folks go to CarFax with pretty much one purpose in mind—to look up a car’s VIN number (the Vehicle Identification Number) in order to find out the car’s repair history—or what problems that particular car might have. Here’s the CarFax homepage:

You’ll note—how can you not?—the khaki-clad Car Fox inviting you to do a “Free Vehicle Search”. Talk about a wolf (ok, a fox) in sheep’s clothing. No asterisks. No disclaimers. Just a couple of fields that you can input either a car’s VIN number or the license plate number and state where it’s registered and…bingo!…you should get some car info. For free, right?

No, not right. Here’s what you get on the next screen:

Want any actual information about the car—it’ll cost you $34.99. See it’s a “vehicle” search—not a “vehicle information” search.

Now, I knew this already—trying to get a vehicle history report online for free is like trying to get blood from a stone. But at least on sites like Vin Central you get a portion of the history report and then there is a fee if you want the whole report. The key, however, is that Vin Central never says or implies upfront that you’ll get anything for free. So with Vin Central, you at least feel that the company hasn’t tried to bamboozle you.

But CarFax? When it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck…and this duck looks and walks like false advertising. And sadly, just a quick search on LawyersandSettlements.com shows that CarFax false advertising complaints are not new.

If you scroll to the very bottom of the CarFax homepage, to the list of links there, you’ll see “FREE SERVICES”. And yes, you can find out whether a car has been identified as a lemon or not. For free. You can also conduct a CarFax “Record Check”—which, ironically, is basically the same thing as the “Free Vehicle Search” above—you get a “search” but no “search results“. The Record Check tells you how many records have been found and then if you want to actually see those records, well, you need to hand over that $34.99. But at least you know you were only supposed to get a record check—not necessarily the records AND the information found in those records.

So is this CarFax consumer fraud? It certainly looks like a bait and switch to me, but you be the judge.

Tags: Bait and Switch, CarFax, CarFax.com, Consumer Fraud, false advertising, Vin Central, VIN history, VIN search

This was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Automotive, Consumer Fraud, Emerging Issues . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.