Carfax has become an indispensable part of the used car ecosystem. Buyers rely on Carfax’s Vehicle History reports to learn if a vehicle was in an accident and to help them value the vehicle appropriately. But what happens when Carfax gets it wrong. The Boston Globe tells us the story of one car owner who discovered that Carfax had incorrectly attributed an accident to her vehicle. There was no way to call Carfax, so retired teacher Chris O’Hare emailed them, and months of back and forth got her nowhere- until they stopped responding entirely. With the help of the Boston Globe, O’Hare was finally able to get the situation fixed. Even then, she received no apology for something that was clearly Carfax’s fault.
Last summer, O’Hare clicked open a promotional Carfax email and was stunned to see that it listed her beloved Subaru as having been in an accident.
“Well, that’s just wrong, I thought, and figured it would take a few minutes to get it corrected,” O’Hare, 71, told me.
But, no, it wasn’t that simple — not even for a demonstrably erroneous record. Instead, it became an ordeal stretching over six months.
By the time she came to me for help, O’Hare was worn out by months of emails with a Carfax “resolution manager,” who proved ineffective at resolving an obvious mistake. Three times she requested a supervisor but never got one.
And of course she couldn’t call customer service because Carfax, like a growing number of companies, doesn’t accept phone calls.
“I really hope you can help because I don’t know what else I can do,” she wrote to me.
Mind you, this was no trivial matter to O’Hare. In pervasive advertising on TV and elsewhere, Carfax hammers home that an accident lowers the value of a vehicle — and that you had better be aware of it.
“These two cars may look identical,” one video ad says, displaying two SUVs. “But with Carfax you will see how its history affects its value.” The ad shows the value of the vehicle with an accident worth $6,700 less than the “clean” one.
“Stop overpaying,” the ad says. “Shop at Carfax.”
Anyone checking O’Hare’s Subaru would see a phantom accident. O’Hare estimates a loss in value of at least $1,200.
“I don’t want to lose money because Carfax made a mistake,” O’Hare said.
Prodded by O’Hare, Carfax identified the accident as having occurred on Dec. 17, 2022, in North Attleborough. That’s ridiculous, O’Hare thought, because on that date she was 1,500 miles away in her mobile home in Florida. Her Subaru, meanwhile, was safely locked in a garage at her condo in South Hadley.
Other companies like UPS and Fedex are similarly accountable to no one. They don’t bother delivering a package one day, or don’t bother ringing the doorbell? Too bad, they’ll count it as an attempt and try again the next day. Good luck trying to speak to a person, and, if you do, don’t expect them to have any tools to help you.
So what to do? Be persistent, keep following up, keep trying to escalate and find new ways in- you might just get an acceptable resolution. But don’t count on it.