PSA - Don't use Cars.com

I had ordered my 2018 and had an expected arrival date so I figured I'd try to sell my 2005 on my own. I put it on Cars.com. I thought it was pretty cool because they don't charge anything and you get to put up a bunch of pictures. I should have been leary when it required you to put a phone number in. I've sold things on Craigslist many times and assumed I could go in and hide that info. I couldn't.

Fast forward to a month later. I've received calls daily from some call center asking if they can sell my truck for me. The listing was only up for 2 days. I have told them each time they call to take me off the list and they say they will. Never happens. The numbers are always different, so blocking them does nothing.

I have no idea if it's cars.com selling my info or if because they require it to be public, it was pulled from there. But lesson learned. Just trying to save someone a headache.

 

Never list your real number online. Get a google voice number.

 

Like I mentioned, I assumed it could be private like Craigslist. Lesson learned. I'll have to give that a try. For now, I just have to block numbers each day hoping I'll get them all. I'd never had issues with telemarketers before.

 

This isn't something that's unique to cars.com. Personal data is being grabbed from every direction these days to move and push stuff.

 

Agree totally. But cars could offer a feature where you could hide your number, or a multiple step authentication so it's not picked up by bots.