I located my E430 on Ebay back at the end of August. I found an excellent deal and made the purchase agreement over the phone with the Dealer; 2000 E430 with 79K miles for $15K even.

I had DAS ship the car to me. After receiving this very nice automobile, I paid my state taxes and applied for a new title.

Friday, October 21st, I received a letter from the state saying that a title could not be issued due to a report of theft on the NCIS database. Now I had done my homework. I had a clear title from New Jersey, and I had a clear carfax from August 29th. I went to my local Police Dept in Huntsville and a very helpful officer checked my VIN on the NCIS database. The car was reported stolen on September 5th (5 days after I purchased the car and while it was in transit). He gave me the follow-up information on where it was reported and which PD was investigating.

On Monday, I called the Linden NJ PD to get more information. As Paul Harvey says, "and now the rest of the story". In the third week of August, A woman claiming to be Shannon Gorham purchased the car in NJ with a "certified check" from the original owner. The owner called the bank to confirm that Shannon Gorham had this account. The bank confirmed. The illedged Shannon Gorham took the original owner's title and the bill of sale to the NJ DMV and got a new title within 1 week issued in her name. She proceed to sell the car to BIG BUCKS AUTO in New York the same week she received the title. She then disappears. I purchase the car on 8/31. The original owner starts having checks bounce for insufficient funds about that same time. He finds out that the check Shannon gave him was a fake. The police go talk to Shannon Gorham (the real one) and find that she is the victim of identity theft (really does have a bank account just never had a certified check drafted from it). The police enter the car as "stolen" on September 5th.

This week, BIG BUCKS AUTO paid the original owner for his car and the Linden PD removed the alert from the NCIS database. My state was then free to issue a title in my name. In the end, I only had deal with a bunch of hassle and could not drive my car for a week (in fear of a felony take-down in front of my wife and kids). The guys at BIG BUCKS are out whatever they paid the original owner unless they can locate who they bought the car from.

Lesson learned - check the age of any title along with carfax. New changes take a little while to show up and have your local PD check the vin against the NCIS database. These are very helpful tools when buying a car.

 

Thanx for the info

 

Wow, that is really scary. Whoever did this really knew what they were doing. They knew you would check carfax so I'm sure they strategically planned things to happen when they did. They probably knew that it takes some time for carfax and other agencies to update their information.

That's very scary. Who knows how many times they've done this.

Who is big bucks auto? You bought the car on ebay, right? Did ebay pursue any of this through their fraud department?

 

BIG BUCKS is a NY dealer. They actually are the ending "true victim" in this case. They took care of me in this transaction. The fraud in this case happened with the purchase from the original owner prior to the acquisition by BIG BUCKS.

Their normal checks on purchasing a car did not catch this either. The seller to them had a valid NJ title. I think they will be wary of "new" titles. It would be a safer business practice to not purchase cars unless the owner has had it at least a month or two.

 

The irony is this case is that on the day the car was reported stolen in Linden New Jersey, the car was at the DAS terminal in LINDEN, NEW JERSEY. If the police would have complelled Tele-aid to locate the car, it as only a few miles from their precinct.