The Expert Podcast

…You know vehicle inspections and VIN verifications and DMV procedures may seem. bureaucratic but here's one of the reasons why. there was a group of people. Who are stealing vehicles and using some DMV paperwork loopholes. To try to get away with auto theft then they arrested. many people for stealing a million dollars worth of cars in Miami. How are they doing it? Well this system was organized criminals that would rent cars out. Or getting cars by other means meaning that they would somehow get possession of the car Now possession of the car isn't enough to get ownership. If you rent a car from Hertz or Avis or enterprise doesn't mean you own it. If you take a car for a test drive from a dealership, you don't own it. But if you can get a car in your possession or borrow from somebody. Then you have the chance to do what's called re-vinning. Where you take the VIN number that's on the dashboard and you take that off and put on another VIN number. That's not. of the vehicle that you rented and then you try to resell them through. Some of they tried to sell through a dealership. Some they try to export. Now the problem with that is. The VIN number. That's on the dashboard Isn't the only VIN number on the car on some cars there's 12 or 14 different VIN numbers scattered around the car. Many of them are hidden and only the police officer. Or the police department knows where they are. So you can't replace them all anyways. these stolen cars with had falsified. and they sold to dealerships AutoNation AutoNation sold some of these cars unknowingly They didn't do anything wrong. they got a legitimate title They bought them. And they ended up selling stolen cards which you have to buy back. According to the article. You could be careful when you buy a car double triple check the paperwork and that might help However this paperwork was done. pretty. Thoroughly matter of fact a vehicle titles not something you can print up on a home computer or something that has a lot of say. features come from the DMV. So if the DMV issues a title with a VIN number on it you might think that that's legitimate. But…you might want to look at some of the second or third VIN numbers on the vehicle. Now the one on the dashboard is attached with tamper-proof rivet So in theory, you shouldn't be able to. Take one off and put one on unless you tamper with those rivets. But some of the thief's…Thieves I know how to make the rivets look correct. So. if you're buying a high-end vehicle and the person you're buying it from maybe has some red flags maybe their name doesn't show up on the title maybe the ownership. Doesn't appear to be, normal of how owners should be Maybe there's no lien on a vehicle That's one or two years old. And why is the person selling it…You might want to look at some of the other VIN numbers If you look underneath. Some of the VIN numbers are accessible to civilians. And. You can find out if that. number has been changed Another thing you can do is if you plug in an OBD, vehicle evaluator. Or a diagnostic tool into the computer system, the actual VIN number the vehicle will show up in the computer. So if you pull up on the navigation screen or in the, infotainment system or plug in a diagnostic tool you can see the actual VIN number of that vehicle If it doesn't match us on the dash, that could be a red flag. So this is a very good example of how sophisticated criminals. Are using the DMV system against itself to get titles for vehicles that they've stolen.