ODO fraud. What would you do about it?

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I spotted a car on Craigslist with 131,973 miles. I goggled the VIN and found out the car was recently sold at auction with 206,044 miles. What would you do about it besides not buying the car?

It must be very common scam in used cars, especially when there are few owners, hard to trace mileage on carfax. I recently test drove a car with "87000 miles" that looked and felt like 287000 miles.

Apparently the digital odometers are easy to roll back.
 
All cars are easy to roll back, somehow I had a little cricket get into my gauges and died so I opened it up (took 2 mins) I know from past experiences you can roll them back by finger with ease.

Iv never rolled back a car tho. I would also like to say iv never sold a car iv been the last owner of every vehicle iv ever purchased with the exception of the 2 my kids killed.

I wanted to run my cars Regal vin but don't really care enough to pay for it.
 
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if the title is checked actual miles unknown it is legal and certain states older cars are exempt from listing mileage
really if you are not buying it just forget about it
 
Private seller? Business?

What can you do, report it to the police with proof? Anonymous tip? Doubt it will be high on their list.

Knowledge is power and there's a sucker born every minute.
 
If your absolutely certain he is committing fraud, put him on blast on Craigslist. List his ad number, car info and VIN, contact info, etc to make other potential buyers beware. Not only could it save someone from getting scammed, but will put people on the lookout for him in the future. Just make sure you have your info right, because falsely accusing someone of a crime just makes for another victim.
 
Crooks still do that?

Many states still list anything over 100,000 miles as "Exceeds Mechanical Limits" even though virtually no one builds a 5 digit odometer anymore (except on Chinese 50cc scooters and you aren't getting 100,000 miles off those anyway)

I don't think any enforcement agency would be that interested in pursuing any sort of real action. Craigslist is overflowing with sketchy "no title - it was my brother's friend's wife's cousin's mother's car...." and little is done about those. Someone is making a fortune on bonded titles perhaps.
 
Originally Posted By: friendly_jacek
I spotted a car on Craigslist with 131,973 miles. I goggled the VIN and found out the car was recently sold at auction with 206,044 miles. What would you do about it besides not buying the car?

It must be very common scam in used cars, especially when there are few owners, hard to trace mileage on carfax. I recently test drove a car with "87000 miles" that looked and felt like 287000 miles.

Apparently the digital odometers are easy to roll back.


I am not law enforcement and I am not responsible for potentially careless buyers not doing their homework. Buyer beware.

hotwheels
 
Digital speedos can be set back very easily with the right software. this costs OEMs billions in warranty fraud, but they keep making cars that hackers can set back
 
Delaer reports it maybe.

A private seller just be happy you did not get duped and move on.

Realize the the seller may not be aware of the issue themselves.
 
Originally Posted By: jrmason
If your absolutely certain he is committing fraud, put him on blast on Craigslist. List his ad number, car info and VIN, contact info, etc to make other potential buyers beware. Not only could it save someone from getting scammed, but will put people on the lookout for him in the future. Just make sure you have your info right, because falsely accusing someone of a crime just makes for another victim.


I see this sort of thing on CL once in a while: Beware of John Smith, sometimes with a picture of some rusted out heap. Thing is not everyone follows CL daily, they hop on there when they need a car once every few years.

And, like ripoffreport.com, it gives people a place to complain after the fact and maybe feel some camaraderie. But the average jerk is going to think it won't happen to them, and won't investigate before purchase.

One simple tool is to search CL by the phone number in the ad for "your car" and see if others pop up. Though this can be subverted by the seller spelling a different digit with letters each time.
 
I had a cluster go bad in an '04 Impala, and got a rebuilt one on ebay for 150 bucks. The seller had me fill out an odometer statement and set the odometer to what I put on the statement. I could have put any number I wanted on there, but of course I was honest about it (went a little higher than it actually was because I couldn't remember the exact mileage when I unplugged it, therefore I rounded it off to the next hundred miles). Just my opinion, but my integrity as a decent human being is not worth the guilt of cheating someone else out of their hard-earned money. Amazing that folks can do this with a clear conscience.
 
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Originally Posted By: MinamiKotaro
Put a severed horse head into his bed.



....Now there's some inside the box genuine traditional mafia style logic.
I agree.

Back OT, no, you could just flag the listing, and try to sabatoge his sale of the vehicle.
 
I'm not sure what you CAN do to warn others.

a couple of months ago I found a similar con listed on ebay: late model Jaguar. listing title said "low miles" listed "only 7000 miles" in the description and the specs. but the lister showed a picture of the odometer: yes, 7000 miles on the TRIP odometer, but 87k on the real odometer. the listing also had the full VIN so it included a carfax report which confirmed the high mileage. I reported the listing to ebay: they never took the listing down. in fact, the car got re-listed with the same faulty information - because it did not sell the first time.
 
Depending on how long ago it was since last reported mileage, it may have passed hands multiple times before the current seller. They may or may not be aware.

I'd probably bring it up with the seller first. Maybe just pose it as a simple curious buyer question..."I looked up the VIN and got a different mileage?" See what their response is.

If you report it to CL, they will probably remove it, but IIRC, they don't allow you to give a reason for flagging it. You just flag it and that's it. The seller will probably just repost, whether or not they know mileage has been altered.

You can put them on blast on CL like jrmason said, but that will only alert the people who look at your post. They will probably still get someone who doesn't do much digging on cars they look at.

Basically, there isn't much you can do. The car is out there on the market and will probably end up with someone who has no idea the mileage has been altered until the car is their problem.

That said, I don't think odo fraud is that rampant. There just isn't as much incentive these days. Make/model/year means more than miles.
 
I'd call him out on it and see what he says before anything. You might just be doing him a favor. It might very well be unknown to the seller.
 
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