Buying a motorhome online

Ed uncovers a common computer scam

It was time to shop for a new motorhome, so I started with a Google search for a class A motorhome for sale.

I quickly discovered the best prices were in the U.S. and the vehicles I was interested were coming up on online auctions, where $50,000 and $60,000 coaches were starting out at $10,000 and $15,000. Wow, what a deal!

I quickly came to my senses and spent a few days watching people bidding and what coaches ended up going for. I also did some research on online auction scams and fraud. Here is what is really going on:

Almost all of the Class A motorhomes I was looking at were owned by dealers. They post a coach for sale with a reserve. Of course, the hidden reserve is the retail price they want for the coach. It is just another marketing tool for them. They will sometimes make a deal with a curber to sell it for them. The curber will then post it as if it is his.

I would watch a coach being bid up over a five-day period and see it finally selling in the last minute with a bid from someone that jumped in the last few seconds. As much as it is against auction rules, I am sure in many cases the sellers are bidding on their own coaches. Auctions have limited ways of policing this and rely on complaints to try to control it. As an inexperienced bidder, you will have no way of telling if you are bidding against the seller. Some sellers encourage you to phone them and make an offer. This again is against auction rules (no commission for the auction), but they have no way of policing it.

Here is something I am still trying to figure out: The bid starts low on a coach and I watch it slowly go up over a five day period. Then many bids in the last minute. If you are interested in a coach, why keep bidding it up over the five days? All you are doing is increasing the price you will pay for it. The best strategy is to get a low bid in early, then wait for the last minute of bidding and place your bid. This is again against auction rules, but everyone is doing it and the auctions have no way of controlling it.

The fraud artist

In my search I found a coach that was just what I was looking for. It would have been a bargain at $50,000, but the seller said in his ad that he only needs $25,000 for it. That was my first red flag. I phoned the number (a Texas number) and got an answering machine with an east European accent. That was my second red flag. Then in my search for that same make and model I found one not on an auction site, but at a dealer in an eastern state. The only problem here was the photos of the coach were exactly the same as the coach being sold out of Texas. I am sure when I phoned the Texas number it was answered by a computer in Estonia.