What Is A Curbsider?

The term curbsider is well known to those in the automotive industry and government, but what does it mean to the consumer?

A curbsider is defined as one who is in the business of offering vehicles to the public for the primary purpose of making a profit, but behaves as if he or she is selling their own personal vehicle.

In the first place, a curbsider is an individual who routinely sells vehicles but is not registered under the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act. The curbsider usually offers the "family car" straight from their house or residence.

Secondly, a curbsider is defined as one who acts as if he or she is a private individual but is really registered under the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act. Often these people have used false information to become registered and this allows them to purchase vehicles from other dealers or at auctions.

Curbsiders dupe consumers into buying their vehicles through a myriad of "stories".

Reasons such as:

• "I'm moving out of the country,"
• "I'm getting married and I really need the money"
• "I'm getting a company car"
• "It belonged to my Aunt, but she passed away"

are often used.

The public buys from curbsiders because it may seem like a deal they can't refuse. Curbsiders claim that they only want to get their money out of the vehicle. They tell the purchaser that they don't want to make any profit, but little does the purchaser know the complete opposite is true.

Curbsider Studies

The Process

Over the years, the UCDA has conducted studies of “private seller” automobile advertisements to determine the proportion of those ads that are really offered by curbsiders.

The data is taken from the study area’s used vehicle ads in newspapers, auto related and Buy & Sell magazines and internet advertising sites. Ads by dealers are excluded from the data to reach the most accurate number of allegedly “private” ads.

The study is done over a 90 day period and the telephone number, make, model, year and price of each ad is put into the database.

Each telephone number, which offers for sale two or more “different” vehicles during this time, is considered to represent a potential curbsider. While there will obviously be some individuals who will have two vehicles for sale in that period, there wouldn't be many ... and the study only counts "advertised" vehicles.

Typical Results

The UCDA has conducted surveys throughout Canada and the degree of curbsider activity has ranged between 18 and 24% . That’s 18-24% of all ads recorded during the study that turned out to be from someone masquerading as a private seller.

So someone looking at ads to buy a vehicle has up to a one in four chance of being scammed by a curbsider.

Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council, the industry’s Regulator, has prosecuted hundreds of curbsiders over the past 10 years

Consumers Reasons For Concern

In the 1992 Barrie study , over 40% of advertisements were placed by curbsiders!

Curbsiding continues to be a major concern for car buyers. While consumers may think they are purchasing from a legitimate “private” seller, who has maintained the vehicle well … the truth may be just the opposite.

The vehicle may have been accident-damaged, poorly repaired, sold with a false odometer reading, have a lien on it… or worse… turn out to be a stolen vehicle.

Unfortunately, when buying from a curbsider, the consumer has little recourse. Often, the curber will have changed cell phones and disappeared long before the buyer discovers a problem.

Curbsiding constitutes consumer fraud; it does nothing to enhance the used car industry and results in millions of dollars of lost taxes for the province.

Curbsiders should be reported to the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council (OMVIC), or to the UCDA.

2008 Curbsider Study

The UCDA conducted a Greater Toronto Area Study to identify curbsiders.

The data for this study was taken from used vehicle advertisements placed in Toronto’s daily newspapers, auto related and Buy & Sell magazines and free internet advertising sites. The study lasted fourteen weeks, from January 15, 2008 to April 17, 2008.

Advertisements placed by dealers were excluded from the study, to reach the most accurate number of allegedly "private" sales.

A total number of 12,410 vehicles were advertised over the study period.

During this study, the curbsider was separated from the honest private seller.

Of the total number of vehicles advertised 16.65% were advertisements placed by curbsiders ... almost one out of every five advertised ... accounting for 2,066 vehicles.

The curber percentage was consistent with previous studies from 1991,1992, 1993 , 1996 and 2002 which were conducted throughout Ontario and which averaged 18 to 24%.

2009 Curbsider Study

A much broader Ontario study was conducted between June 9th and September 9 th of this year.

There were over 100,000 vehicle ads in the study and, for the first time, vehicles advertised on Kijiji and Craigslist were included. Both of these websites were found to be good hunting areas for curbsiders.

The results showed that almost one in four ads were for a curbsider’s vehicle … 24.23%.

And while phone numbers with more than 5 vehicles each may have included some registered dealers who were illegally advertising as private sellers, those with 2-5 vehicles accounted for 90% of all curbers.