A man trying to sell his Toyota Tacoma posted a video on TikTok after almost falling for a scam known as the “dirty oil trick.”
Anthony shared a clip explaining that he is trying to sell his Toyota Tacoma by himself. Earlier this week, he showed the truck to four potential buyers.
The group had cash in hand when they arrived to inspect the vehicle and, according to Anthony, seemed genuinely interested in closing the deal.
But suddenly, everything changed when they decided to take a test drive. “During the test drive, the guy kept talking about it, like: ‘Oh, what’s that smell? Is that burnt oil, burnt rubber? What is that smell? Is it from the car?'” Anthony said.
When Anthony and the buyer returned from the test drive, one of the men asked Anthony to open the hood. That’s when he warned Anthony that there was burning oil in several different spots under the hood.
“There was a bunch of oil in that area, and that’s where the smoke was coming from. Then he asked, ‘Can you get in and rev it a little more and show me if it keeps smoking?'” Anthony recalled.
Anthony agreed, but when he got in the truck and started the engine, the buyer pointed out the truck’s exhaust, which was leaking oil. “I think they, like, put oil or something there,” he said.
The last thing the buyer pointed out was the coolant reservoir. “It doesn’t look like coolant. It looks like oil. It looks like sludge,” Anthony explained. But if you look at the side of the reservoir, the fluid inside still looked mostly pink.
“I looked up a photo and if coolant and oil mixed, it would literally look like coffee-colored sludge,” Anthony said. Then he pulled the dipstick and found that the level was sufficient and it didn’t look like sludge.
The buyer tried to offer Anthony what he considers a “ridiculously” low price for the Tacoma. He said he almost accepted but was “glad he didn’t.” “Because now I have to get all that oil out of the coolant.”
“It’s more of a headache than anything else. Watch out for scammers out there. I didn’t even know this was real until I tried selling my car myself. What world do we live in,” he lamented at the end of the video.
Photo and video: TikTok @theanthonynguyen. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
@theanthonynguyen If you’re selling your car by yourself make sure to bring someone with you! Name and number of the scammer is in the comments!! I was doing this solo and in front of my house nonetheless where the security cameras couldn’t reach. (They made sure to ask if they could drive it out the driveway before trying to pull the stunt) I couldn’t see all of the guys all at once and they seemed really quick with it so I was just really confused and thought my car had broken down as I was showing it to them. Mind you we’ve never had issues with it mechanically. So just trying to spread the awareness cause this the first time that I’ve experienced it!! #Vlog #life #scam #staysafe #lesson #lifelesson #fyp #xyzbca ♬ original sound – anthony nguyen
