CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – A Charlotte woman contacted WBTV after she tried and failed to get the company CARFAX to fix a simple mix-up on her car reports.
When Stewart Harris set out to sell her white 2022 Yukon GMC, she had no idea the hurdles she would face.
“We pulled the CARFAX report and noted that there was damage reported to it that had been incurred in a wreck in June of 2022,” Harris said. “We knew that it hadn’t, so we emailed CARFAX saying this is a mistake, could you please correct it?”
She said she got a response about a week later denying her request, telling her they had in fact received a report of damage and asking her for further proof.
“We don’t have any documentation because we didn’t have any work done,” she said.
This is when she put two and two together. She also owns a black 2022 Yukon GMC that was damaged in a wreck in June of 2022, but that damage was not listed on its CARFAX report.
“We suggested maybe the VIN numbers got switched up, could they please look at this, and I guess we were hoping that they could make a rational leap and say, ‘oh, goodness, that’s probably what happened’ and make both of the reports accurate,” she said. “They said ‘no, we can’t do this.’”
She said they asked for more documentation from the wreck her black vehicle was involved in, which she promptly sent over.
“About a week later, they got back to us and said they didn’t have enough information to change the report,” she said.
That’s when she contacted WBTV for help.
“Just from my history of watching y’all, I realized, ‘oh, they might know,’” she said.
WBTV contacted CARFAX, and within a few days they acknowledged the problem and fixed it.
In a statement, a spokesperson for CARFAX said:
“Thanks for your query. After researching the issue further, we were able to verify that a third party reported the damage data in error.
We have updated the CARFAX Vehicle History Report and removed the damage record. We’ve communicated this with the consumer and appreciate her patience as we corrected the error.
CARFAX has over 139,000 data sources and over 33 billion records – we pride ourselves on the accuracy of our data and strive to ensure its integrity.”
“It was incredibly frustrating just to think I’m trying to get accurate information out there,” Harris said.
“It just kind of makes you think, what about people who don’t have the opportunity to be sitting there and going through this,” she continued. “They’ve got to sell their car at what could be anything, from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars under what they should be getting for it, just because this company says ‘nope, this is how it is and we can’t change it.’”
If you have a problem you want investigated, contact WBTV’s Caroline Hicks at [email protected].
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