The Expert Podcast

Here's another reason why it's very important to verify who you're purchasing a used vehicle from, because there's a lot of what's called unlicensed dealers or curb stoners out there that are buying and selling cars. Over the Internet's a lot easier now than it used to be Curbs Stoners are called curb stoners because they used to have to sell cars from the curb. They didn't have a dealer lot They didn't have a license or showroom to sell from. So they would just have cars at their house at the curb, and they would put an ad in the classifieds in newspapers. and sell these cars. Now you can do it online without a license. But an unlicensed dealer first of all is breaking the law And second of all they probably have other things going on with these vehicles that you want to be aware of because they don't have a license There's no, authority over them or regulation of them. How did this work here is a case where a group of people and these were relatively. Legitimate people. Got caught up in an unlicensed car scheme. Allegedly these three people including a high school football coach. We're selling cars without a license That's. crime right there One count of acting as a car dealer without a license. And they also did odometer tampering. Because…when you're selling cars without a license you don't have any background paperwork on the vehicles. So you can change These mileage is a lot easier. Then if you have a dealer's license that logs the miles. or odometer tampering is a federal crime. Right. Selling cars on a license It's just a local state crime. odometer tampering is federal So that's big trouble. According to investigators more than 4 million miles of rolled back costing victims $150,000 What that means is that when a vehicle mileage is lowered, Arbitrarily or or illegally. The value of the vehicle goes up and you can sell it for a higher value than what it should have sold for. That's where the 150,000 comes from. charged with multiple felony counts of odometer tampering, dealing in the lawful proceedings and other offenses. So they don't play around with this This is a federal crime. it's a reason why you should check. The vehicle but also check the dealer You're buying it from make sure they're legitimate and make sure they have a license You can verify, make sure that they have a physical location Almost every state When you get a dealer's license you have to have a physical shop where you're selling your cars. but this is something that comes up a lot. We get a lot of calls from people at our investigative side that says look I'm buying this car or I already bought this car And this dealer now has disappeared where they are licensed dealer I don't know.