Car history reports have become a mainstay in the modern car-buying process. These reports provide invaluable information about a car’s ownership, maintenance, registration, and damage history, giving buyers helpful information to assist them in getting the right car for the right price.
There are lots of car history report organizations out there: TitleCheck.us, CheckThatVin.com, Bumper, CarVertical, VinAudit.com, AutoCheck, just to name a few. The most popular of these entities is, undoubtedly, CarFax. You probably know CarFax from its commercials in the mid-2010s featuring the company’s mascot, the Car Fox.
If you’re shopping for a used car, virtually any dealer will provide you with a CarFax for free. But if you’re buying from a private party, CarFax will charge you for a report. Still, I’d argue it’s very much worth it to drop the $44.99 for that information—doing so has, on multiple occasions, saved me from buying a lemon in disguise.
Because of how CarFax works concerning corporate accounts, people with unlimited access to the database have figured out they can simply sell reports online, either through standalone sites or through third-party marketplaces, like Etsy, for pennies on the dollar and make a healthy profit. In researching how they’ve been able to get away with this, I seem to have ruined it for a bunch of people.
Here’s How CarFax Normally Works
CarFax, at its core, is a data-gathering organization that sells that data to people or firms that can use it to make more informed decisions. According to its website, CarFax receives its data from more than 151,000 different sources, “including every U.S. and Canadian provincial motor vehicle agency, plus many auto auctions, fire and police departments, fleet management and rental agencies, and more.”
The database, which contains 35 billion individual records, is so vast that CarFax can instantly generate a report for any vehicle sold new in the United States from the 1981 model year onwards. That’s around 8.2 billion CarFax reports, ready and waiting for anyone who needs one.
These records can include virtually anything relating to a car’s history, including whether it was flooded, how many owners it’s had, what sort of maintenance was performed, whether it was used as a taxi or rental, its exterior color, whether it passed its last emissions test, whether it’s ever been issued a salvage or junk title, how many accidents it’s had, and which part of the car those accidents affected.
A CarFax might not catch every part of a vehicle’s history—people routinely pay repair shops in cash under the table to fix stuff without reporting the data to CarFax—but it remains a useful tool for buyers. That’s why CarFax can charge $44.99 per report.
If You Make It Cheaper, People Will Come
Individual buyers are only a fraction of CarFax’s business. The firm also sells access to its database to insurance agencies, dealerships, financial institutions, and even police departments. Because these entities usually require access to hundreds, if not thousands, of CarFax reports per month, they’re charged a periodic subscription fee for a set number of reports or unlimited access. CarFax doesn’t publicly disclose how expensive these fees are, but some reports suggest they can be as little as $400 per month for smaller dealers, with prices climbing for bigger businesses.
Here’s where the scheme comes in. When it comes to these corporate accounts, usually, several people are provided access, since it’d be impractical for an entire organization to have to go through one specific person to generate every CarFax. For example, at a big dealership, each salesperson likely has their own login to the dealership’s corporate CarFax account, so they can generate a CarFax report for a customer without having to go through a middleman. It’s also possible they could all use the same login, and share it across the organization.
Because these employees have free unlimited access to CarFax reports, some have presumably figured out they can charge people a fraction of that $44.99 in exchange for a report, which they can generate for free at their work computer. It’s a win for the person paying, because they’re usually only paying $5-$6 instead of nearly $50. And it’s a win for the employee selling the CarFax under the table, because they’re likely pocketing that charge. The only real loser in this situation is CarFax itself, which misses out on the lost income that would’ve been produced if the person purchased the report straight from CarFax.
This practice is, of course, against CarFax’s terms of service. While it’s not explicitly illegal to do this, CarFax can definitely sue you over it. Here’s the exact wording (which is a bit out of date, going by the pricing):
You understand that commercial use, resale and redistribution of the CARFAX Report is strictly prohibited. “Commercial use” is defined as use by persons engaged in the business of researching, buying and/or selling of automobiles, the resale or redistribution of CARFAX Reports or any other business purpose as determined by CARFAX. Any commercial use of CARFAX reports is strictly prohibited and any suspected commercial use will lead to the suspension of your guest account, until you provide sufficient proof that your use is purely personal. Failure to do so prior to the expiration of your guest account will result in the deactivation of your account, without refund, and may result in legal action. Proof of personal use may include: detailing how you are using the guest account and specific examples of the sites or locations where you are finding the vehicles that are being offered for sale. The determination of personal use is at the sole discretion of CARFAX. We reserve the right to impose, and you agree to pay to CARFAX, Inc., an additional charge of the then current price of the 1 CARFAX report package (currently, $39.99) for each CARFAX report that CARFAX deems was accessed for commercial purposes.
So How Does This Transaction Work, Specifically?
By now, you’re probably wondering how you can snag a CarFax on the cheap for your next project car purchase. This sort of scheme has been going on for years on the internet, with numerous websites—each sketchier than the last—offering CarFax reports at discounted prices. Most of them are popularized through word of mouth, through forums, Discord chats, and friend groups—it’s a “if you know, you know” type of deal.
Personally, I can name three or four of these sites that, according to friends who have used them, are totally legit and will sell you a real, up-to-date CarFax for any car for pennies on the dollar. But I won’t be naming any of those sites here, as that would probably open me up to some sort of legal action from CarFax. That being said, they aren’t particularly hard to find.
Those who are, understandably, too nervous about putting their PayPal or credit card info into a site they’ve never heard of haven’t been totally out of luck. Since at least 2022, people have been pulling this backdoor CarFax scheme through Etsy, an internet marketplace where individual sellers can list stuff like arts, crafts, handmade trinkets, and, importantly, digital downloads.
There are two main benefits to doing this through Etsy. The first is for the seller, who gets a far wider reach because their illicit reports are being shown for sale on a well-known marketplace, rather than an obscure, shady-looking website they might’ve made themselves. The second benefit is for the buyer, who can see product reviews to determine whether the seller is legit, and has a more secure way to pay, since Etsy handles the actual transaction.
Please Don’t Be Mad At Me
Let me make this clear: I’m no snitch. But having been recently enlightened by this easy, cheap, relatively risk-free CarFax-Etsy hack last week, I became curious why Etsy would allow this to continue for years, despite the practice likely being against its own rules and opening itself up to litigation from CarFax. So I reached out to the company for comment. A representative for the site replied a day later:
Hi Brian,
Thanks for reaching out and flagging these. I can confirm that we have removed the listings for violating our policies.
I guess Etsy just wasn’t aware. Oops.
With one email, I had eliminated what was likely a fantastic source for cheap CarFax reports for buyers across the country. That’s my bad and not my intention.
Reselling CarFax’s data on Etsy is, of course, totally against the marketplace’s policy, which outlines that all items sold on the site must be made, designed, handpicked, or sourced by the seller. The data on those CarFax reports was very much not collected by the sellers, so it makes sense why they were deleted.
If I had to guess, this isn’t the first time a purge like this has happened. It’s been just over 24 hours since that email landed in my inbox, and at least two sellers have already begun listing CarFaxes for sale again through Etsy, with one using a totally new account. So you can’t be too mad at me. People who had their listings and accounts deleted are probably just making new accounts and starting over. Every time Etsy notices, the cycle continues.
Where’s CarFax In All Of This?
Presumably, CarFax would be all over this, since it’s losing business to the people who subscribe to its subscription plans.
I emailed CarFax at the same time I emailed Etsy, and even followed up with the company a second time. I didn’t get any sort of response to either email. While it’s probably pretty tough to squash all the random sites selling cheap CarFax reports online, it’s unclear why the company has overlooked Etsy.
It’s also possible that CarFax doesn’t care. As I said before, this scheme has been going on for years, and CarFax, to my knowledge, hasn’t changed the way it actually releases reports to customers to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Perhaps they’re making so much money from these corporate deals that these occasional bad actors aren’t relevant enough to put a dent in earnings. It’s tough to know for sure, since CarFax is a privately owned company that doesn’t release financial data.
No matter the case, I’ll be sticking to buying legit CarFax reports for my future car-buying endeavors.
Top graphic images: CarFax; DepositPhotos.com
Brian, snitches get stitches. And if anyone knows stitches it’s the Etsy folks so watch out.
Brian bout to get EMBROIDERED!
te he
Damn, COTD is locked down, and the day isn’t even halfway done.
I’ve always thought that the American healthcare system makes snitching pretty appealing if you don’t have great insurance.
CarFax could probably install some kind of monitoring in its systems for subscribers: for instance, if a VIN is listed as currently belonging to a subscriber, that subscriber can download a report immediately. If they download a report for a VIN that isn’t under that dealer, the dealer gets charged, but the charge can be returned if the VIN shows up in their records within some nominal period of time after the request.
CarFax is kind of to blame for this circumstance. It’s an obvious loophole that someone, somewhere – in fact, quite a few someones as anyone could reasonably expect – was going to exploit.
I can’t imagine why CarFax would come after Silvestro though. That’s just dumb. You don’t blame the messenger, you read the message and act on it….which is what Etsy did, and good on them for actually adhering to their own policies, even if they couldn’t be bothered to occasionally scope out their own website from time to time.
I recall back in the web forum days that people hunting for their own new project would get a monthly sub and “quietly” mention that they would run VINs for other members. Most of the forums I was on cracked down on that because they didn’t want to be hassled by The Fox for supporting it somehow.
I would be leary of going to random websites that promise to provide a Carfax. I once had a scammer pose as a buyer for a car try to get me to buy a vehicle history report from a website that probably would have just taken my card info. Don’t know, never clicked the link. I also don’t love how prevalent these types of report have become if only for the fact that I do most of my own maintenance or repairs, none of that will show up on any history report. I’ve read there is a way to self report this, but I’ve never really looked into it, so now if I go to sell I just have vehicles that are actually pretty decent with sketchy looking histories.
$45?! Yikes! It was like $20 last time I used it.
As a Mat Armstrong fan, it’s not CarVerticle, it’s “CarVer’ical”.
I typed car history report into Etsy and saw 4 similar sellers in the first page, so don’t worry about missing out.
If they were $20, I’d be way more tempted to use them when looking at casual Marketplace listings.
The AI slop images are the most offending part.
Agreed, but isn’t this actually the perfect use case for AI? Untraceable visual similarity without actually infringing on CarFax’s trademark.
Nah, the only winning move with AI is not to play.
Merriam-Webster names ‘slop’ as its 2025 word of the year
I you have a Consumer Reports account, you get big discounts with Carfax. I think I remember getting like 6 for $60, and it was all on the up and up.
I really want to ask the question. . .”When do I get paid for the information about my personal property that car fax collected without my consent to sell?”
But to be honest, I don’t really care anymore.
This!
I did not consent to any of my information being shared with carfax. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
Welcome to modern society, where everyone benefits from your data except you.
Not really true. Every “free” ad-supported service on the internet is provided to you because of your data. Even with CarFax, you indirectly benefit because you are able to make use of the service when you want to buy a car, which you could not do if they didn’t have your (and everyone else’s data).
I’m not saying this is a good system (I subscribe to the Autopian precisely because I have big problems with the ad-based internet), but it’s also not correct to say that we don’t benefit at all from how it works.
No disagreement, but “welcome to modern society, where everyone benefits from your data, including you on a variable scale of utility to annoying, which is how all of these companies rationalize invading your privacy” is far less witty and pointed.
It cost me a few hundred dollars once. I had a car that I drove only a few thousand miles per year, so I could request a “low mileage” discount. Which worked until someone at a tire shop fumble figured my mileage once (by adding 10K miles) which apparently went out to CarFax, which then got to my insurance company, who quietly canceled that discount for a year before I noticed.
Where I live we have no CarFax or equivalents, but after reading about it here a few times, I wonder how does their business work. Why are they entitled do info from any garage?
Even insurance companies, to my knowledge, only learn about crashes if you go through their network. What makes CarFax any different? How do they get all this data?
Good question. Could it just be that someone gets money or some benefit from it. It is beneficial for insurance companies to share the information (fraud preventation), car manufacturers are obliged to give some sort of outside access to the service records (at least EU) so that every mechanic can provide the services that you need to keep the warranty. So there are databases, which cost money to keep running, so why not sell the data? Adjust the legalese in the insurance policies etc.
Probably these companies (carvertical etc.) just buy all the data they can get access to. And then advertise that they know everything. But if the car is crashed and rebuilt without insurance company involvement…
You’re exactly right, carfax compiles information from various databases into a more comprehensive history of the car. Some of these databases are public, like DMV title transfer records, and some of it is private.
I believe that garages/mechanics have to sign up with carfax to submit reports. I’m unsure who’s paying who or what the benefits for the mechanics are but I assume it influences where people bring their cars for service to see CarFax partner stickers on the door.
A lot of marketplace sites have no freaking clue what kind of stuff people are listing. Some of them use coded titles and obtuse language, but those “in the know” can read between the lines.
You think eBay or Craigslist pays people to inspect every listing? Not a chance. They use AI, but people know how to fool it.
I strongly suspect that the reason Carfax doesn’t really go after this is that individual reports aren’t really the business model. All these big accounts are, and punishing them because some of their employees take advantage would hurt them and going after each reseller isn’t worth it.
It’s kind of like winrar. They didn’t care that every individual user was using the free trial forever, they just sold to the big companies and made plenty of money.
VirtualBox actually wrote this into their license. It’s free for personal use, but if you roll it out at your company you need to pony up.
I love the stupid AI slop “report” in the last image. I’ve always wanted to know about my car’s “Acidiona Love” and “Resone” history.
Beware those Trcvious Owners!
I appreciate that they showed me what the CarFox would look like if he developed a serious cocaine habit.
Mixed feelings on the Carfax. Yeah it’s great to see the history when buying a used car, but wow, it can hurt your pocketbook when selling, even if the car was repaired correctly.
Last week, I was hit in my 7500-mile Kia Forte GT by an idiot red light runner. Side curtain airbags deployed, massive rear quarter panel damage, massive rear suspension damage. Fortunately I just got beat up by the airbag a bit. As much as I loved that little car, I was praying it would be totalled from the standpoint that it would be almost unsellable down the line with a major accident on the Carfax. I just got word yesterday that they are declaring it a total loss, I’m off today to look at a couple of CPO ’24 Integras!
Glad that was totaled. Airbag and suspension damage nearly guarantees it. Happy hunting on a replacement!
I agree with this, but the practice of listing the severity in the report helps reduce penalties for minor incidents. If the car was damaged moderately or worse, it does suck for the owner, and I’d trade it in ASAP after repairs (it will never be the same anyway). I keep photos and repair estimates/invoices on hand to disclose what actually happened and reduce buyer anxiety.
I think that’s a really big weakness of CarFax. You know a car was in an accident. It usually indicates repairs were done. But it does not differentiate between a shop that just got it back on the road as quickly as possible and one that worked to make it pristine. I don’t know if there is any good way to do it, but I wish there were a service they offered that documented not just the severity of the accident, but the completeness of the repair.
I’m not mad at you. This is stealing, plain and simple. If you’re not doing it legitimately, you’re a thief.
I hate to come down on the side of big information business, but yeah, two wrongs don’t make a right here.
(something that we at The Autopian definitely DO NOT DO when it comes to accessing subscription-only news websites).
So, it’s cool if we all share an Autopian sub, right?
This rubs me the wrong way. I would appreciate some integrity. If you want me to turn off ad blockers, turn off yours. (I’m obviously a member but you get the idea). If you want a sub for your site, pay for subs for the sites you look at.
I couldn’t tell whether that was a serious statement or a “wink wink nod nod” statement. I choose to believe they were serious when saying they don’t share subscriptions. If not, I agree with you.
Isn’t that exactly what he said they do? He clearly said they do not share single subscriptions.
Are you reading sarcasm where there isn’t any?
Per MH’s comment, it looks like I did read sarcasm into it where there was none.
Usually over-explaining/vehement denial is that wink that Spikersaurus mentioned above, a clue that it’s sarcasm, so that’s how I read it, and I while I was ultimately wrong I don’t think it was a wild leap to make, either. And with the steady drive for subscribers subscribers subscribers, please help keep this site alive, it read to me as “pay for us, though we don’t pay consistently for what we use.”
It could be read as the opposite of what it says, yes. But it can also be read simply as what it says, which is my hope.
I don’t think this line really landed right, so I just took it out. The Autopian pays for a ton of subscriptions (Bloomberg, Manager Magazin, Detroit Free Press, AN, Nikkei Asia, et cetera).
Thanks Matt! I thought this was the case, but it wasn’t clear.
It was a good line if you don’t read too much into it, and don’t have new pearls you need an excuse to clutch.
Some might call it hypocrisy, but I’m not a robot (or a lawyer) to put login sharing for Bloomberg and The Autopian on the same level. Scale matters. No company with a board and shareholders is our friend. Not saying either is right, but I won’t shed any tears for the former.
Found the guy who paid for WinRar when the trial expired! 🙂
Don’t feel bad for getting these guys removed. Basically this is theft. The people profitting off of this don’t have the right to resell the information. If someone is looking at putting thousands of dollars into a private party used car and they think Carfax is useful, they should pay for it from Carfax.
CarFax erroneously reported my stepdad’s car being in a major crash. The car had never been in a crash of any kind, nor had it ever even been in the city where the crash had happened. My stepdad contacted the police department and obtained both a police report and a letter from the department showing the actual vehicle involved was not his and that it had a different VIN.
Despite this CarFax refused to correct their mistake. Thanks to that report the car became unsellable except as a salvage and my stepdad ended up taking a big hit to get rid of it.
Fuck CarFax.
I wonder if someone sufficiently pissed and with the time could sue for defamation or something in cases like that. Seems like a decent lawyer could make that an easy one
Unfortunately I didn’t hear of this till after the fact or I’d have looked into finding him such a lawyer. I’m sure my stepdad wasn’t the only one hurt by CarFax. But no, he thought it would be too time consuming to go to court and that when the dust settled the legal fees would be too much. He’s a “don’t rock the boat” kind of guy.
Oh well.
The best I can do is share the story and hope it makes people think twice before trusting CarFax.
“The best I can do is share the story and hope it makes people think twice before trusting CarFax.”
Personally, I never trusted Carfax. All they do is regurgitate info that’s already out there and don’t put much or any effort into truly vetting it.
I have far more faith in seeing a prospective car in person and doing my own inspections and test drives.
I’ve come across more than a few “clean carfax” vehicles that clearly had been in floods or collisions… and were quietly fixed for cash under the table so the given incident remained off the books.
Unfortunately I believe they have language in their terms that basically says “we’re just collecting and sharing the data, any errors are the fault of our sources, not us.”
That’s infuriating! They are an aggressive company, and the remedy would be competition and more open data. Data being concealed and owned in our society brings a lot of ills and injustice.
Its not the mistake that bugs me so much. Mistakes can happen. It’s the fact they refused to correct it when presented with official police documents showing they made a mistake. That kind of obstinance shows they don’t actually care about the truth.
Uh, aiding and abetting fraud on Terms of Use? Usually ends badly for everybody.
Here is a little hack to get background information on a vehicle using the free Carfax Car Care app. In the app, in the Garage screen, select the option to add a car. Enter the VIN and it will provide information recorded by Carfax. I tried it with the Charger I traded in and found out it is now in Memphis, TN, overdue on an oil change, and has an open recall. Also found that the Kia Sorento we had for 8 years had the engine replaced a year after we sold it.
Does it give the full history, or only some bits?
Dude….
You think $45 is a reasonable price to pay for a CarFax, but apparently a lot of potential buyers do not agree. I bet if they halved the price to $22.50, they would have direct sales of more than double what they’re selling to individuals now. And put more of the resellers out of business.
No, I think you nailed it. If I’m casually interested in a non-daily, not long-term car $20 is a no brainer, but for some reason $30 is just plain unreasonable. By just searching the VIN and going through the 20 or so sites that want to sell you a full report, you can piece together most of the info you need just from the 5% they share to hook you into buying a full report.
Very much this. Piracy is very often (not always! There will always be thieves) an issue of access, whether price or availability. The market says a Carfax report that costs $45 is worth $5-$10. Figure it out.
I don’t feel bad for the illegal resellers being outed but I’m not exactly tearing up on behalf of Carfax either.
I think a volume discount or subscription for individuals would be more reasonable.
For all I know, they have exactly that, I haven’t checked. I browse a lot of car listings recreationally and am interested, just not that interested.
I just checked and there are discounts for buying multiple reports, but they are underwhelming. One is $45, 2 for $60 or 4 for $110. So the lowest price is $27.50 per report. I understand they don’t want to undercut the value for their dealership, but it feels like they could halve these prices and people would still see a Carfax at the dealership as a helpful addition.
If I’m casually thinking about that Miata or MR2, or slightly more than casual, I would cough up $20. But for every Marketplace 3rd car that catches my eye, $50 is a breaking point.
“CarFax can instantly generate a report for any vehicle sold new in the United States from the 1981 model year onwards. That’s around 8.2 billion CarFax reports.”
I think your math is off. That equates to 186,000,000 cars sold per year.
Also, your the kid in school who reminded the teacher about weekend homework. Way to ruin it for everyone, Brian.
That’s records, not files on individual cars. So if each car has a dozen records, or entries, you get to that number.
Narc!
If Carfax had a way to buy a single report directly through them, I would. But no, I’m not spending $45 just to see what the history on my newly purchased 1979 Ford Fairmont looks like. If I was seriously shopping for a newer car it’d be a different story.
So I have and will continue to use under the table sources. I just checked and the site that I’ve used several times successfully is still there.
“I didn’t mean to be a snitch, I just called the police asking them why they’re allowing teenagers to smoke marijuana behind this gas station”
the F? What did he think was gonna happen?
I had the same thought.
This. Only it’s more than “calling the police”. More like “I just broadcast an Amber Alert to every IP address on the planet”
Yeeaaahhh. I used to get 3 of them for $45 or somewhere close directly from CarFax. I’m not spending that for one.
79 Fairmont… niiiice! Mine is a 78.
IIRC from other posts you’re an Aussie?
You are correct. The Fairmonts are distantly related – mine is an optioned up Falcon.Fun fact – the tailgates on the 79 wagons are identical.
Then you’d appreciate this.
I was born and raised in Australia and moved to the US when I was 8. When I was in Australia my dad had a 1980 XD Fairmont Ghia sedan and my uncle had an XE Falcon, both of which clearly influenced my automotive tastes as an adult.
I have a 1985 Ford LTD (midsize) with a 425HP V8, manual trans, and road race suspension. I put XW GTHO “Super Roo” stickers on it as an homage to my heritage and Aussies’ love of muscle sedans.
I recently bought a 1981 Ford Durango, which was a super rare ute conversion done to Ford Fairmont coupes. It’s in rough shape, so I also bought a much cleaner 1979 Ford Fairmont coupe and intend to make one good car out of the two. I plan to “Aussie up” the Durango somehow too – I am considering putting Falcon S-Pack graphics on it. I even plan to buy the Aussie XD Fairmont badges, complete with 4.9 fender engine callouts to confuse Americans 🙂
“It’s also possible they could all use the same login, and share it across the organization (something that we at The Autopian definitely DO NOT DO when it comes to accessing subscription-only news websites).”
Riiiiiiight.
Translation: they don’t want to mess up each other’s algorithms on the taillight p*rn “subscription only news websites.”
Torch HATES it when that happens.
Torch has a problem when my oddly shaped diesel engines interfere with his enjoyment of taillights, and when the occasional Jeep creeps in.
Well if David turns out to be in posession of one less ZJ Grand Cherokee “layer cake” taillight than he thought he had, he knows where to look.