The Expert Podcast

This is why you need to be very careful about how you go about getting a title for a motor vehicle. Look, if you purchase a vehicle and don't get a title, that's typically going to be a problem that's solvable, but a lot of people try to take shortcuts. Here's a perfect example of a title fraud title loophole scam that was used, and it went on for a couple years, but it turns out it was illegal. Two people were arrested for a car title fraud scheme, and what they did was file false affidavits for abandoned vehicles or mechanics liens. This is a very common method people use to try to bypass the process of a bonded title, a court order title, or some other legal method because they feel it's too hard, but actually these methods are actually harder than doing it the right way.

This is a towing company that supposedly worked on abandoned vehicle affidavits from 2020 to 2023, almost 3 years. The person would give the forged documents to another person so they could sell the vehicles. A lot of times this is done as a service where companies will say, Look, if you want a title for your vehicle, sign it over to us. We'll file these fake mechanics liens or abandoned vehicles, and then once we get the title in our name, we'll transfer it back over to you. They forge signatures, and they falsely say that the vehicles were in the towing company's possession and sold with a fraudulent bill of sale. The document specified that none of the transactions actually occurred, so this is a very common way to try to bypass other title methods, and it put two people in jail. A lot of times, these titles that were issued under this scheme will end up being revoked later.

So if you pay some title company to do something that's illegal and you don't know what they're doing, you may end up having your title revoked later, so make sure that if you're getting a title for a vehicle, you understand the method being used, and really, you don't want to be signing your vehicle over to somebody. There's a big risk that if you do that and they somehow get busted for any kind of fraud, even financial fraud, their vehicles could be attached to that, meaning their vehicles are now attached to you, so make sure you understand the process. Typically, any legal method to get a title that you could do you could do yourself for free. You don't have to pay anybody to get you a title. There are services out there to help you with it, but if you're paying somebody and just washing your hands of it and just saying mail me a title, a lot of times you don't know what's going on behind the scenes. Next thing you know, you could be caught up in some kind of scheme like this.

So this happens all the time this one just came out a couple days ago we've seen these for decades there was a big company in Alabama that was shut down because they were doing titles illegally there was another group of people in San Antonio Texas back about 10 years ago that we using some similar scheme and it ended up getting shut down so make sure you understand whatever method is being used to get you your title if you have a title problem and then it's legitimate and then it passes muster with legalities and not some kind of sketchy gray area loophole that is going to get your vehicle in trouble or flagged a lot of times they'll flag these vin numbers which means that you can't get a title after the fact.

If you have any questions, you can reach us on our website, cartitles.com. You also have the option of scheduling a consultation with a title agent if you prefer to do that, and we're glad to be of assistance.