In June we bought a used car that I had seen on craigslist. We called the seller's cell phone number and went to take a look. Of course I ran a Carfax report on the VIN, and the car came up clean. We even brought it to our local mechanic to have it looked at to make sure there was no damage underneath. Everything checked out great. We paid $9500 cash, got a bill of sale with the title. I insured it and went to the DMV the next day to register it. I paid the tax, got the new plates, and everything was great. Now tonight, two months later, two officers from the DMV Auto Theft Unit came to my home and said that I had bought a stolen car! I was shocked! My husband and I gave them all the information we had about the sellers. Of course they impounded the car - had it towed away immediately. Now I'm out $9500. They said my only recourse is to take the seller to court, if they can find him. I don't think there's much of a chance of that happening. My husband gave them the seller's cell phone number, name and even showed them where we first saw the car, but that's all we had. I emailed Carfax to inquire if this would be covered under their Buyback guarantee, but haven't heard back yet. Has anyone had a similar problem? Do I have any recourse? $9500 is a lot of money to lose and to top it all off this was my daughter's graduation present. She starts college on Tuesday and now has no way to commute. I'm sick to my stomach over this.

That is CRAZY! You did everything you could and still got screwed! How is it that Carfax didn't know? Maybe it had just been stolen and didn't show up yet? I would call a lawyer right away, find out what you can do. Did you get it really cheap?

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"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked." ~ Bernard Meltzer

The report I got tonight said the car was stolen in NJ in October 2006 . We just bought it in NY in June of this year. How is it that Carfax AND the DMV didn't know it was stolen? It's a 2006 Sentra so we thought we got it for a good price. The guy originally was asking $10,000, but sold it for $9500. Good advice, flipper, my husband is calling a lawyer tomorrow. Shouldn't someone be responsible?

and you know that these guys were actual police officers how? Were they in uniform? Did they show you badges and give you a report number to reference? The DMV Auto Theft Unit?

I'm telling you that all sounds fishy...I'd call the local police/sheriff's dept. and see if they have any record of the car being stolen

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

They had badges, uniforms, an official car, all the reports, copies of the papers I brought to the DMV, etc. They gave me copies of the order to impound, reference numbers, their cards, and all their phone numbers. I just called the office now to double check, and it seems legit.

I can't believe the DMV didn't know! Could the guy that sold it be the one who reported it stolen? Maybe he sold it and then was trying to get the money and the car, reporting it after everything was said and done? Maybe it's a new scam or something?

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"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked." ~ Bernard Meltzer

Could be a scam, but the report said it was stolen last October. Wouldn't it have to have been reported to the police and the DMV at that time? None of this makes sense. I'm going to call the Auto Theft Unit in the morning and ask them more questions.

If a report of a stolen car was made in October and entered into NCIC at that time, then yes, the DMV and whoever else should have known when you bought it and went to registered it.


I will say that when I worked 911 VINs could be tricky to read and/or input: the letter O being mistaken for the 0, the number 1 being mistaken for either an I or an L, a 3 being mistaken for an 8, etc. If ONE mistake was made when inputting the VIN either when it was reported stolen or when you registered--that would be all it would take.

You definitely need to get further information!

If it were I--my happy butt would be parked at the police department (or whoever is overseeing the investigation) bright and early in the morning! I'd request copies of everything! Take notes of who you speak to (name, rank, badge number, etc.)

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

oh, I sm so sorry to hear...the first thing comes to my mind was this an angry husband selling wifes car during a nasty divorce ?? Your car fax report, does it show previous owners names? Curious....who the original owner is and what's their story. Seems to me that the owner already got their insurance claim $$. So, it might be something you and your current insurance company could help you with and perhaps their lawyers?

XXX fingers for you and your daughter...

The carfax report only showed there was 1 owner - it doesn't give the name. My DH spoke to the lawyer today and he thinks that despite Cafax's disclaimers, we may be able to bring a case against them. People buy used cars from other people everyday, right? Isn't that the purpose of Carfax? Anyway, the other option could be that if the DMV Auto Theft Unit finds the person who sold us the used car, and he's a small-time criminal, the DA might accept a plea from him and require that he pay us back. However, if it's a big crime ring, that would be another story. The DA would want to prosecute to the fullest extent, and I don't know where that would leave us. None of it sounds like good news, that's for sure.

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. I've never heard of such a thing. If the car had been stolen in October of 2006, then I would have thought everything would have been entered into the DMV records and a red flag would have shot up when you went to the DMV.

As far as CarFax, I don't really trust them. Here's my story: We paid the money to get the service while we were looking for a truck for DH. So while we had it, we decided to look up all our old cars. My son had previously had a Corvette and had wrecked it two years ago. (He bought it himself; we didn't help). The damage to the Corvette was over $15,000 !!! It has serious damage but wasn't totalled because the car was worth over $30,000. It had major frame damage, had to have new paint, new wheels, bumpers, engine, etc., basically the front was totally replaced. He had so many problems with getting it repaired correctly, taking over 9months, that he let the bank take it back. Anyway, we decided to look it up on CarFax. Guess what? It showed IT HAD NEVER BEEN WRECKED!! We couldn't believe it. Looking at that car on CarFax, you'd see it had only 30,000 miles and was in great shape! But there's a place on CarFax where you can add your own comments about a vehicle, so that's what I did. I basically typed in everything that was repaired on the Corvette, listing the total amount of damage. I'm hoping it helped the next person who decided to buy the car because it was never fixed correctly. But I couldn't believe CarFax didn't have the information on there.

I would think you'd definitely have a claim against CarFax. I mean, isn't that what you pay the fee for??Please let us know what happens with this. I guess it's makes us think twice about buying from an individual buyer now.

Thanks for sharing your story, mom2twins2. I e-mailed Carfax last night and I am waiting for a response from them. Apparently, they do all their correspondence online - there's no phone number for them. If they reply that they're not responsible, I was thinking of calling the local news. You know the ones who do those stories where they try to help people recover their money or property? I would think though that Carfax wouldn't want such negative publicity, but I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Good idea! Don't forget to call your insurance company and see who previously insured the vehicle!
They have that info!!

Good question! I'm also going to ask them if we might be covered to rent a car.

Just thinking out loud here -- but would your insurance company be liable to give you insurance money to cover your loss of $9,500? I know when we call our insurance company to give them the information on a car we've just bought, they ask for the VIN number and one time we gave them one wrong number or letter and the insurance rep said it didn't 'match' what she had. Then we re-read it to her and she repunched the numbers and it 'matched'. So maybe you have some recourse with your insurance company to at least reimburse you for your loss because, after all, it is a loss. Wouldn't it be along the lines of someone stealing your car?

Just read about the same thing in the newspaper today.


Braman dealership sued for selling stolen Hummer - 08/30/2007 - MiamiHerald.com

My friend last month was talking (about car fax) and stating that if something happen to the car and it was not listed on car fax, then car fax is liable for not listing the information. If you buy the car.
I don't know if this is true, but look into it.
Because if my friend was right, then if car fax did not list information on this car, maybe you can make them responsible.

We just spoke to our insurance company and in this situation we're not covered to rent a car, or for anything else as far as the stolen car is concerned. I can't even get the tax money back that I paid the DMV on the purchase of this car. The only thing they're refunding is one year of the registration. I'm still waiting for a response from Carfax to see if they're liable. None of this seems fair!

would they tell who who the previous owner was?

D#@$^& on your insurance co! Sorry........

Vehicle History Reports - VIN Number Used Car History Records - DMV.ORG

Look, it's supose to check theft! hmm...

My Insurance Company (Geico) didn't even know who the previous insurer was, but we got that information from the DMV officers. We were thinking about trying to buy the car legally through them, but were told that the car would be kept as evidence if there were a case. The DMV.ORG link from the poster above is another service, like Carfax. But if that one checks for theft, I would think that Carfax would too. I'm still waiting to hear from them.

https://www.nicb.org/cps/rde/xchg/nicb/hs.xsl/39.htm

Maybe these guys can help or steer you in the right direction?

What if you called your local TV station? One of our stations does a story every day and has helped a lot of people get to the bottom of sticky situations. I would think this one would be one they'd really like to help you with. I just can't believe you could be out in the cold losing $9,500 without some sort of recourse against someone, especially since you did your homework before you bought it by going thru CarFax. Not being nosey but are you making monthly payments to a bank? If you're paying it off monthly, have you contacted your lender? What are they saying? I mean, if you stop making payments, it's not like they can come and repo it !!

I don't think this is insurance fraud, but I'll check it out. Thanks.

I would definitely call them. Obviously, this would be of interest to everybody since this could have happened to anybody

I'm giving Carfax until tomorrow morning to respond, and then I'm definitely calling a local station. I know the segments you're talking about, and maybe they can help me.

Actually, I would also call your local newspaper -- I bet they would also be interested in your story since this could happen to anyone.

Good point - I'll do that too. Thanks!

UPDATE: I finally received a reply from CarFax: "I'm sorry , but the Carfax Buyback Guarantee does not cover stolen vehicles." Perhaps this is something that they should include in their ad? I just called a local news station and maybe they can help me. I'm going to call the local paper now too.

Have you asked the police officers whether the car has to be kept as evidence until they catch the person who sold it to you or, if at some point, the car is auctioned. If as someone suggested the original owner from whom it was stolen has likely collected on the theft from his insurance company maybe it goes back to the original owner's insurance company and they auction it. It seems that given the time between when the car was stolen and you bought it the VIN number noting that it was a stolen vehicle should have been available to carfax and the state dmv office. Who's responsibility is it to report stolen vehicles to the state dmv -- the police department, the owner's insurance company? Where does carfax gets it's information on vehicles?

Seems to me somebody dropped the ball big time and that office should be held responsible. Thinking that perhaps you might be able to work a deal with either the police or the insurance company. It's a shame that you, the innocent party, will be the one who suffers the loss through no fault of your own.

Also, I think I would try to have a conversation with one of the officers who came to pick the car up. Certainly they've dealt with similar situations and perhaps would have some advice.

I think that this is a story that should go to the newspapers because people should be aware that if they buy a used car, there's really no reliable way to know if it's a stolen car, unless you buy it from someone you know personally. I'm not giving up on this, though, and will make a few calls to some local politicians as well. As it stands now, I'm out a lot of money.

Please see the rules and regulations of the cafe. You need to post on the other boards before posting here and you must have a post count of 25. Thank you for understanding.

Just read about the same thing in the newspaper today.


Braman dealership sued for selling stolen Hummer - 08/30/2007 - MiamiHerald.com

Check out the 3rd. box regarding Carfax on the Kelley Blue Book site. It clearly says stolen.

Kelley Blue Book - Carfax Title History

Yes, I saw that too. But this was their response:

The Carfax Buyback Guarantee is offered to protect consumers from purchasing a vehicle with a branded title in its past. A "Branded Title" is a passenger motor vehicle ownership document issued by any of the 50 states of the U.S. (or the District of Columbia) or a passenger motor vehicle registration document issued by any province of Canada (which may also be referred to herein as a "Branded Registration") which was issued with words or symbols signifying that the vehicle was: junked or salvaged; dismantled, rebuilt or reconstructed; flood damaged; fire damaged; hail damaged; bought back by its manufacturer; odometer exceeds mechanical limits; odometer was not actual mileage; declared a total loss (Canada only); or which was issued with any other symbol or word signifying a similar Brand. Specifically excluded from the definition of "Branded Title" are: titles originally issued without a Brand but later stamped with a Brand; salvage titles issued due to theft; damage disclosure documents; and Branded Titles issued in error and later corrected. I am sorry, but the Carfax Buyback Guarantee does not cover stolen vehicles.

Our lawyer (my DH's cousin) said we should sue Carfax, and was going to get us in touch with a lawyer who specializes in this kind of lawsuit. In the meantime, I'm giving the police and the DMV one week and then I'm going to the newspapers, my local councilman, and our senator. I think this is the kind of story people should know about, don't you? If you want to buy a used car, how are you supposed to know if it's a stolen car or not if even the DMV doesn't know? Someone should be liable. I REGISTERED the car at the DMV, and paid the taxes on it! Which, by the way, I'm not getting back either. Right now, I'm more concerned with getting my daughter back and forth to school next week. Anyway, I appreciate everyone's support on this. Thanks!

THE SAME THING JUST HAPPENED TO ME. I AM SO GLAD I FOUND YOUR POST.
CAN SOMEONE GIVE ME SOME ADVICE ON WHAT TO DO?
2 DETECTIVES SHOWED UP AT MY HOUSE AND TOOK MY CAR AFTER 14 MONTHS, CLAIMING IT WAS STOLEN. I AM INSURED WITH GEICO, WHO DENIED ANY LIABILITY.
PLEASE HELP ME, ANYONE.
THANKS.
MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS FIRMMD1972@HOTMAIL.COM/