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May 9, 2007
For anyone who has actually ordered a copy of his or her credit report and seen the kind of shambles of wrong dates, addresses, figures etc listed there, the news that Carfax, which sells histories of used cars, is facing court judgement can hardly be a surprise.
A class-action suit claims Carfax deceived customers by concealing the limits on the information it collects about crash damage. An Ohio judge will decide on Friday whether to approve a settlement.
Carfax is a great idea. With the wealth of computerized information available, it is smart to download it to prepare reports on almost anything. However, as with credit reports, there are limits.
I signed up with Carfax to do research on a used Volvo and on a story about buying used cars. I found the service moderately useful, but limited. In some cases meticulous lists of services followed each other like a definition of reponsible consumership. Then the vehicle was apparently sold and great blanks appeared in the record.
Meanwhile, grand assurances were made about the overall condition of the car - that it had not been flooded, in an accident, etc. But as the car's driver's door was of a different shade of silver than the rest of the body, it seemed to me that some work had been done on it that was serious enough to warrant a paint job.
And then there was the stange experience of the standard one-month account being terminated after only a few days because of some fear I was putting it to commercial use. I never found out what the worry was but suspect it was because I opened the account from my office. It was hard to get through to a human being and in the end my service was reinstated following a tart exchange of emails.
I bought the car anyway and so far so good - apart from a nasty knock when I put it into reverse. Certainly, it's a vast improvement over my old car.
Point is, these reports purport to show the whole picture and all too often that is not the case. But reading down a list of approved items can provide a peace of mind which is quite valid - so long as it is treated as merely a piece of the puzzle.
Posted by 
at 1:30 PM | Permalink
Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published.
