Safety Tips For Selling Your Car On Craigslist Or Facebook Marketplace

It's time to sell your car. Back in the day, your options were limited. You could take pictures of your vehicle, write up a description, and post a classified ad in your local newspaper. Or you could drive around with a "for sale" sign in your window and hope that the right buyer spots your ride. Today, however, things are a little different for the DIY car salesperson. Thanks to the internet and social media, sellers can post their vehicles on platforms like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, eBay Motors, and CarGurus. And with some options, the seller doesn't have to pay a thing (or very little) to offload their vehicle.

Sounds like the Camelot of car sales, right? A utopia of get-this-friggen-car-outta-my-driveway? Not quite. When selling a car with online classifieds, you accept a certain amount of risk beyond having to scan your face for Facebook Marketplace.  On the one hand, crafty users may use internet sales platforms and online classifieds to scam people out of money or their vehicles. On the other, more sinister hand, bad actors may attempt to harm or carjack a seller. Or worse. That's why it's so important to sell smart when navigating online vehicle classifieds.

Sad to say, you're going to have to put up with some pretty annoying stuff. You're going to get more useless, infuriating "Is this still available" messages than anything else. But to stay safe when selling your ride on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, you'll need to plan and follow some basic safety guidelines. From meeting in a public spot to avoiding shady payment practices, your best bet is to make yourself difficult to target.

Let's get one thing straight: Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace aren't the boogeyman. You can, however, make yourself a more difficult target when selling your car. For starters, don't give away too much personal information in your Facebook Marketplace profile. Also, while it's good practice to take many clear pictures of your car, consider blurring your license plate in photos. Protecting your personally identifiable information lessens your chances of falling prey to scammers. 

Ever heard of strength in numbers? That applies to selling your vehicle on Marketplace or Craigslist, too. It's a smart move to have a buddy or two with you to a meeting. Just leave your resident instigator at home. Here comes a "duh," but it's a duh that far too many online sellers and buyers overlook. Always meet your prospective buyer in a safe, public spot. Better yet, find a monitored "safe exchange" or "e-commerce zone." While a camera or a police station can't stop every bad egg, it does act as a deterrent. As for test drives, verify and photograph the buyer's license before letting them drive. It's also best practice to accompany them on the drive. 

Then there's payment. It's best practice to accept cash, a verified wire transfer, or a cashier's check in exchange for your vehicle. Checks bounce, and releasing your vehicle or title to a buyer without verified funds could leave you broke and vehicle-less. And, speaking of your title, make sure your odometer reading is correct when signing over ownership; a buyer could wreck the vehicle immediately and claim they weren't responsible. Cue the sad slide whistle. Finally, never be afraid to walk away from a deal. If it sounds too good to be true, it just might be.

Here's the good news: you can sell your car on either Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist without making the list of the worst experiences our readers have had selling a car. Either platform will do. That said, Facebook Marketplace bakes in a safety benefit over Craigslist. Specifically, Craigslist doesn't require sellers to establish a user account or viewable profile. As such, users (and scammers) can message sellers and set up appointments with near-complete anonymity. Good for privacy, but it opens up sellers to scams and other dangerous possibilities.

Facebook Marketplace, on the other hand, requires a profile. Sellers can then vet potential buyers based on their profiles, considering attributes such as location, posts, and Marketplace history, and ratings. Marketplace also features a built-in messenger function with mobile accessibility. That makes it easier to track your conversations and report scams. Most traffic on Craigslist, however, uses email or CL Chat, an account-linked means of communication. Craigslist isn't all bad, though. If you get lucky, you might even find something crazy like a basically new 22-year-old Dodge Viper. Still, regardless of which sales platform you use, you can make sure your next online car sale is as safe as possible by keeping your wits about you.