Yup, bought a car with what turned out to be a fake title...yikes.  To make the situation even better, the real title is held by Title Max and has a $1,200 lien on it!

Fortunately, it was a $1,000 Miata that is being built into a track car.


Kinda worst case, it lives on a trailer.  


Worst case, it gets repossessed before I can figure this out legally.



If you really want to keep up with whats going on, you can follow my updates here www.paulngalle.com

That dude looks nigerian as hell.

Haha I know right?

 

Some people are scum.



Aloha, Mark

Hope getting it sorted isn't a big PITA.

Funny (kind of) related story.  Have a friend of a friend who totaled his car, and ended up towing it to a buddy's house.  Car was trashed, and wasn't much left to even salvage.  Well, car ends up pretty much abandoned at my buddy's place, and he can't get rid of it.  He couldn't get the title for the car, so no salvage yard would scrap it.  Eventually, he finds out one of the local title pawns has the title, and is currently looking to repossess the car.  He calls them up, tells them where it is, and says "come and get it".  Repo guys show up, and refuse to touch it...say they can't/won't transport it in the current condition.  Buddy calls the title pawn place, they say they no longer want the car, they will go after the individual...buddy demands they come get the car, as they are the current "owner".  They refuse, tell him its his problem.  His final solution?  He calls up a guy with a roll back/flat bed, they dump it in the parking lot of the title pawn on an early Sunday morning....much lulz ensued.

Looks like you shouldn't have skipped the car fax

If you can't trust Nigerians who can you trust?

You say you bought a car with a fake title. Did he not have a title, and you tried to get one only for the DMV to say no? Or did he provide you a forged document? Two very different things.

Creating a duplicate, fraudulent title for a vehicle is a felony in most states.  It's called "title fraud"; police departments, district attorneys and insurance companies will eat cases like that with a grin on their face. If he provided you with a forged title, call the police and file a report.



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I'm not sure of your states laws but this is fraud/forgery/theft here.

At $1,000 I would just quit and use the car in a demo derby that had a grand prize of $1k+. It wouldn't be worth the legal fees to keep it

Also; I'd try contacting the dean of the college he attends. I'm sure they could have some influence on the situation.

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Yep, illegal in GA.

http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/news/state/ga-car-dealer-son-charged-with-alleged-odometer-title-fraud/article_398768d3-f34c-5eb5-9161-e5ae6c7b5a45.html

This guy needs a call from a police fraud investigator.

This made the thread worth my time.

That is awesome on many levels.

 

In process.

 

Correct, he will be dealing with all sorts of legal trouble over this.

 


I was hoping we could solve it without bringing in the law as he seemed to be a decent guy in the beginning.  But, his lack of integrity has left me no other option and will end up costing him big time.


 

OP, good luck on getting the sorry fuck. Such things are never an accident in my opinion.

Run him into the ground OP.

Fuck people like this. I have an $800 ding on my credit from a shit bag I tried to be nice to.
Worked with his gf. Sold him a POS, with him FULLY aware of every problem the car had. "Oh I'm a diesel mechanic, no worries" Even let him make payments over the course of 6 months..for $1000...  Few weeks later..car caught fire, the shitstain never registered it, so they came after me for tow and storage fees. Best part...he was Nat'l Guard. I have his name and SS, and NO ONE wanted to point me in the direction of a higher up who might be able to set his ass straight. If I ever see him, <CoC>  And by the by...may fuck be upon those who didn't want to help me. I thought the services looked down on those who serve our country fucking other people over.

This story gives me much inspiration. My sisters civic was wrecked and left at my parents house. We tried to sell it but come to find out some "cash for title" place has a lien on it and refuses to come and get it, and of course like you mentioned my dad cannot scrap it without a title.

Looks like I'll be calling a buddy to get it and dump it in their parking lot real soon.

ITT I learn that selling a stolen car is no biggie UNLESS YOU FORGE THE TITLE!!!

Go on, tell of the after hilarity

Unfortunately, it was rather anticlimactic.  There wasn't really anything the title pawn place could do, after all, it was their car...We'd heard the manager was pretty irate, especially with there being a 2 ton wrecked POS in the middle of the parking lot.  I'd imagined the best part was discovering it at 0850 on a Monday morning, and having 4 parking places up front blocked by a car that looked like it had fallen out of an airplane.

Who said the car was stolen?

douchebag takes his title and car to Title Max.  They loan him money, with car as collateral, and put a lein on the title.
Douchebag sells the car, with a fake title.

Where is the stolen car?

Was it a counterfeit title, or just a title without the lien listed. Could it be a duplicate title he had before the loan? But even so, selling or disposing of property with a lien is a crime, but it depends on whether law enforcement will get involved.

Have you had an opportunity to look at the loan paperwork....the amount seems a little high even for loan sharks

Why try? Easily 1/10th if GD needs remedial reading and writing. If someone can't grasp it the first time, do you think it'll happen on the second go around?

I love this story.

How did you discover it was fake? Was there misspelled words in it?

It was a duplicate title, that was no longer valid.  I have not, but he hasn't paid on it since 2014 so I imagine the amount is growing rapidly.

 

Just curious. How long has this been ongoing? I mean have you been fighting this for a month and then just doxed the dude or has it been going on since thursday and you decided to dox him?


If its been a month and you gave him enough time to sort it out then fuck em.. If its been like a day then you may be a little quick on the trigger.. So how long have you given him?

You are a victim of a fraud. You don't own the car and know it now.

The $1000 you paid for it is gone, write it off.  You can get him in trouble, possibly even get him some jail time (but I doubt it), but you can't force the money back out of him if he doesn't have it any longer or refuses to give it to you.  

HE IS NOT A DECENT GUY.  He did this to get ahead by fucking you.  HE IS NOT A DECENT GUY.  MAKE HIM PAY.

Years back I was into wheeling and specifically into the Ford Bronco II. My cousin and I both used to have one and wheeled together. He ends up getting engaged to a girl who says she had one at her dad's place that used to be hers,  and I can have it. Awesome!  

I go and pick it up,  bring it out to cousins shop,  and proceed to work on it for several months. It barely ran when  I got it,  and the transmission was acting up.  Dumped a few hundred dollars into it and a lot of work was done on it,  basic tune up, trans fluid exchange done,  removed the old smog equipment that wasn't needed,  put on a budget spacer/block lift, brake and wheel bearing job, plumbed in a snorkel,  and purchased a set of 31" Treadwright all terrains and put them on. It was running great and the gf and I enjoyed a few camping trips with it.

The whole time she keeps saying she is going to get the title,  its somewhere at her dad's house. Months go by,  and every time I drive the thing on the road I have to rake out a temporary permit and insurance on it.

Finally I get tired of waiting on her and contact the DOL to inquire on title status,  and see if I can get the ball moving somehow. I then find out there is a lien on the title. I tell her this, she then changes the story and claims it may still be in her ex boyfriends name,  and now he lives in Alaska.

I get the guys number and call him,  explain the situation. He says he gave it to her,  she was supposed to pay it off and she never did. He doesn't have the title. Ultimately neither does she,  because she's a fucking disorganized wreck of a human being. I offer to pay it off,  she does not even know how much she owes or who to pay,  since she doesn't have the last registration slip.  DOL won't tell me who holds the lien so I can pay it off.  

So I have this nice little trail rig that I was already in love with,  and seemingly no way to figure out how to get ownership,  and it's no longer free either,  apparently.

Ultimately I said fuck this and just brought it back to her dad's house and left it there. Then she and my cousin called off their marriage (in part on my advice)  and I never hear from her again.

Later that winter I see somebody I don't even know driving the thing around in the snow, with my tires even still on it, and sure enough it has fucking current tags on it.

Do you have any tobacco?

i would be paying him a visit with a few buddies before i got the law involved...


give him a chance to learn ... learn real good

ask you anything? why oin earth did you buy a miata. was this really your daughters first choice, for her first car?

So, except for the felony he seems like a decent guy?

You need dates in your narrative and more info: where/when it was advertised, when you bought it, when you found out the title wasn't clean, etc.

Winning!

I have a 93 pathfinder at my house that belongs to a dumbass I know.  Next time I see him I might tell him I'm considering it abandoned and I'm going to start parting it out.  He put the title up to pay for his bail some time ago, and it threw a rod out the side of the block shortly there after a few miles from my house as he was coming to get his trailer (which is also still here, and has no registration or anything I know of, so I might be able to just sell it.   It's a small trailer).



If I were to find another engine for cheap or free, I would also be tempted to put it in, hotwire it, and rally the piss out of it back behind the house in the hills.



Luckily it's not in the way or anything, so no big deal in that aspect.

Well, I guess this is one of those painful life lessons that one learns the hard way.  I bet you get pissed off every time you see that thing out driving around on your hard work and money.

I know I would.

Is that what a neighborhood looks like in Hawaii?

My brother in law bought an 80s Chevy Blazer from some yahoo who "couldn't find the title."  It was a few hundred dollars.  He drove it for a year or two and mainly only towed his dad's boat with it.  He would swap tags from his car when he needed to use it.  The brakes were junk and he ended up parking it in his parents driveway.  His mom got tired of it and demanded it gone.  While it was snowing one day, he drove it down to the local community college and parked it.  He even wiped it down for prints.

As for OP's situation, don't waste $5K on lawyers, call the cops before this guy turns it around on you and reports the car stolen and says that you faked the title.  Obviously, him calling the cops first wouldn't go well for him, but that's a headache you don't need.  At the risk of him coming after you physically, you could tell him what you plan to do to see if that lights a fire under his rear.  Shoot, you could even track down his parents and call them.  Maybe they will pay it off to keep their baby out of trouble.

Oy vey.  That sounds like a nightmare, OP.  Hopefully you get it sorted out without too much trouble.

You bet... Worst part of it was that while this was all going down, my neighbor offered to sell me his 89 4Runner - last year with removable hard top - for next to nothing. Had a brand new crate 22RE, and he had done most of the work in replacing the original interior panels with diamond plate. Just had a fuel leak and needed the paneling job finished. Since I had the Bronco I declined to buy, and he sold it before I could change my mind.

Regretted that one ever since.

Been going on since Nov. 29th if I remember correctly.