Carfax: VIN scam is ‘sweeping the country’
Indiana State Police issued a warning to anyone who possesses a car or is looking to buy a vehicle about a VIN cloning scam, Call six Investigator Kara Kenney reported.
Indiana State Police issued a warning to anyone who wields a car or is looking to buy a vehicle about a VIN cloning scam, Call six Investigator Kara Kenney reported.
Car thieves are cloning vehicle identification numbers from legitimate, legal cars and putting them on stolen cars.
«They copy a VIN plate from that car, make a fresh VIN plate and put it on the stolen car,» said Senior Trooper John Perrine. «It makes it difficult for us to track and find because it looks like a real VIN plate, and they`re able to register the vehicle, typically.»
Most of the time, consumers have no idea they`re buying a stolen vehicle with a cloned VIN.
«Typically the people in possession of these vehicles are truly virginal,» said Perrine. «If you buy a car and we find out it’s stolen you’re going to lose that car and you very likely won’t get your money back unless you can track down the original person who stole that car.”
ISP is presently working on a local cloning case after Carfax tipped them off.
«Carfax continually looks for scams like VIN cloning, and if we do identify a potential clone, we alert police or whoever investigates those crimes to help recover those stolen vehicles,» said Carfax spokesperson Chris Basso. «VIN Cloning is a scam that’s sweeping the country and it’s costing consumers ems of thousands of dollars and leaving them holding the bag with a car loan and without a car.”
Basso said you can protect yourself by doing a Carfax or other VIN check, and searching the report for crimson flags.
«If you see things like registrations in numerous states over brief periods of time, service records in different areas, mileage readings that go up and down,» said Basso. «Those are all crimson flags that the car is potentially cloned. And the one you may be buying is actually a stolen vehicle.”
Indiana State Police say no criminal charges are likely in the local cloning case because the suspect died a few years ago, and the car is now with the insurance company.
Police and Carfax both said car buyers should be especially aware if they`re buying from a disreputable dealer or an individual.
“VIN cloning is a scam that is hard to detect, other than looking into the vehicle`s history, so you truly want to pay attention to what`s been reported on that car,» said Basso.
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