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In Reply to: Check this! eBayer trying to auction tampered 740! posted by Brett(NJ) on December 27, 2000 at 11:40:28:
The auction at the link below is for a beautiful white '95 740i with 96K miles. The only problem is that the TAMPER DOT is lit on the odometer!!! It's a shame, because these guys seem to have their act together and really want to be on the up and up -- they seem to sell a lot of cars on eBay. So, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and figured that they may not know about the tamper dot.
Anyway, it probably won't do any good, but I sent the following email to the seller. CAVEAT EMPTOR!!!!
Gentlemen:
I am a potential customer of yours, and have been consistently impressed by the level of detail and professionalism you show in your auction listings. In shopping for a "new" BMW through your listings, however, I came across something that I think you should be made aware of.
In the picture located at the following URL: http://www.autoshowcase.net/ebay/2288/2288odv.jpg
you show the instrument panel and odometer of the car you're listing, which is nothing unusual. What *is* unusual, however, is the orange dot that is lit just under the word "miles" on the odometer. On all BMW's (including my '95 325i and my '00 323i) this dot is known as the "tamper dot", and indicates that the mileage on the odometer CANNOT BE TRUSTED. The dot is lit whenever the instrument cluster has been disengaged, tampered with, or replaced.
As a buyer educated about BMW's, I recognize this dot and know to avoid any car that has that dot lit. In the interest of good conscience, though, I wanted to bring this issue to your attention and give you the opportunity to do the right thing -- inform your high bidders of the potential odometer tampering and adjust the selling price accordingly, and/or remove this car from listing until you investigate the issue.
You guarantee clean titles and odometer readings on the cars you sell. I don't see how you could possibly live up to that guarantee on this car -- you will likely end up taking it back at your expense once the buyer brings the car in for service and is told by a BMW service technician that the odometer has been tampered with. It is likely they will not agree to service the car at all, so as not to be blamed for causing the dot to appear.
Please accept this email in the spirit it was intended - I think your company provides a great service to the car-buying community. I would just hate to see your customers buy a car that may have been tampered with, or you incur the extra expense of taking a car back that you didn't know was tainted.
Good luck.
Regards,
Brett Molotsky
I really don't think the guys selling it are trying to rip off the customer who buys it. I doubt that the people selling it are aware that the car has a problem. Judging by the number of cars that the company has already sold on ebay, I doubt that they are dishonest. If they were, a previous customer would have already notified ebay of their practices and ebay would have not allowed them to sell any more cars on their site. In the seller's description of the ad, they stated that they check all of their cars for accident history, fraud, odometer rollback, etc. through carfax. They even provuded the VIN number of the vehicle so the buyer could check for themselves. If they did indeed check the car on carfax and the car's record showed up clean, then it goes to show you that you can't trust carfax 100 percent of the time. I think the letter that you wrote is really good. You should send it in and see if they do something about the car. Like you said, they should either disclose the odometer tampering to the buyer and reduce the price, or they should take it off auction. Thanks for bringing this to the notice of the people on this board.
Good Luck,
nrj
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