Before you buy a used car, it pays to do your research. Be careful of people who try to sell you things that aren’t theirs. But this sad story about a used Ford Bronco shows that you can still get burned no matter how many checks you do. AZ Family says that a person from Arizona was trying to buy a used Ford Bronco. They looked on Craigslist and found a good sample. As you might expect, it had Alaskan license plates and a few thousand kilometers on the clock. The buyer, who will be called “Nick” in the story, didn’t just hand over $75,000 without doing any research first. After getting a clear Carfax report, he checked the title at a Motor Vehicle Division office run by a third party in Phoenix. “If there were any problems, the VIN would have shown them; I assume the system does that,” Nick told AZ Family that it didn’t happen. Nick did his research, but his purchase still needed fixing. This was found out three weeks later when Nick went to a store to trade in his Bronco for a pickup truck. The VIN of the Bronco had been switched, which was noticed by a worker at the store who saw something wrong with the VIN. People say the Bronco was one of many cars stolen from a Ford factory near Detroit. Nick says he lost the $75,000 spent on the car because the cops took it away. AZ Family says this scam has also hurt several people in Tennessee, Arizona, and New Mexico. Seven people have been arrested in Michigan concerning the thefts from industrial lots. Reports say some cars’ titles were made in Alaska using stolen names and addresses. Most people think checking a car’s numbers through Carfax and the local government license is enough. Surprisingly, a dealership found the problem that the independent MVD office in Arizona needed to catch up on so quickly. The Arizona Attorney General’s Office recently scolded the Arizona Department of Transportation for not keeping an eye on third-party MVD companies as it should. People have recently gotten permits, ID cards, and car titles without the proper paperwork or permission. Overall, it’s a hard pill for the unhappy customer to swallow. We all learn this lesson eventually: Craigslist can be dangerous, so do everything you can to ensure you get what you paid for. If you want to buy a used car, check the VIN in a lot of places and research the car’s history.
