This is the latest post in our series Dirt Legal Stories, where our staff tells often embarrassing stories about the strangest car-buying experiences we have ever had in the hopes of saving you some trouble down the road. They don’t always end on a high note, but despite featuring a rather serious title issue, today’s tale has a happy ending.
A clear sign that you have a serious car addiction is when you start looking for a trailer to bring home even more cars with. Before then you’re stuck renting trailers or borrowing from friends, and that adds a thick level of planning and consideration that must go into each and every “what if” that pops up on Craigslist. Having your own personal car trailer removes those restrictions so that the only remaining hurdle is your own self-control, or lack thereof.
My addiction reached that crucial tipping point in the summer of 2018 when I began scouring Craigslist ads, Facebook posts, and even the local newspaper for a trustworthy slab of metal on wheels to drag home more of that oh-so-sweet rusty gold. One day the perfect trailer was posted less than an hour away, but little did I know, several unexpected twists and turns were just around the corner.
The car trailer in question had a full metal construction, a winch at the front, and built-in ramps at the back. Both of its 3500-lb axles had drum brakes and it was owned by a local racing driver. And the price? Lower than I ever expected to see.
To the surprise of no one, I bought it the very next day.
The World’s Best Seller… or a Scammer?
My experience with the seller was incredible. He was a fellow gearhead and an all-around great person who lived near the small town where my father was born. My dad joined me for the purchase, so we all swapped stories about how things used to be. The seller did everything short of offer us dinner to make our time there as comfortable as possible. To my dad’s judgement and mine, he was a great guy and an ideal seller.
He said he had thought about selling the trailer a year earlier but at the time he couldn’t find the title. He ordered a replacement title and continued to use the trailer before offering it for sale again. A quick look at the title revealed a recent Issue Date, a detail which matched the story, so I signed the title and hauled the trailer home, fantasizing about all the non-running rust buckets I could rescue with it.
The next day I submitted the title to my local DMV. I stood in line, paid the taxes and fees, and joked about the weather like any other day. But several weeks later I received a piece of mail from the Department of Revenue. I thought it was the title, but it turned out to be a letter in which the Department of Revenue claimed that the title I had just turned in wasn’t the most recent title on file for this trailer.
Oh no.
Red Flags Were Raised
There I was, with a title that was completely worthless.
A letter like that would usually be a major red flag, a solid indicator of an attempted scam. But knowing what I knew about the seller and the story he told of the trailer, I picked up the phone and called him before jumping to any conclusions. After pondering the situation for a few minutes, he concluded that he gave me the title that was originally lost instead of the new replacement title. Somehow the two titles had gotten mixed up, and somewhere in his possession was the true title to that trailer – still active, mind you – and he offered to try and find it.
At that moment I considered the possibility that I was the victim of a creative scam. What if the seller intentionally sold the trailer to me at full price using an outdated title, so that he could keep the real title and use it to sell some another trailer he didn’t have a title for? That would get him more money for both trailers.
And guess what? The only person who could catch him in the scam would be me.
We see this fairly often at Dirt Legal. It’s an especially dangerous car title scam tactic because it’s nearly impossible to see coming. In fact, people have pulled this very stunt on one of our staff before.
Luckily, that isn’t how this story ends.
It Was a Simple Mistake
After all that rigmarole, it turned out the seller simply made an honest mistake.
It was telling that the seller answered the phone and talked with me about the problem. A seasoned scammer would have disappeared, never to be heard from again.
Instead, he apologized profusely. In the coming days he tore his entire house apart looking for the newest title, and when he couldn’t find it, he ordered a brand-new replacement title at his own expense. When that one somehow got lost in the mail, he ordered yet another replacement title. When that title arrived, he overnighted it to me along with a handwritten sincere apology.
And when I finally had the title in my hand, I offered to pay him for his trouble. He declined, even though his DMV was nearly a two-hour round trip from his house, a trip he made several times over the course of several months.
For a story that looked troublesome at times, this went down as the most outstanding car-buying experience I’ve ever had. It reminded me that there are wholesome people in the world, people who are true to their word and honest to a fault. I’ll never forget that, and I hope to pay it forward with my own actions if ever the opportunity should arise. Kudos to you, sir. You’re one of the good ones.
Crises Averted… Barely
With that said, there was a lot of tension in those months. Waiting. Hoping. Speculating. All the while the trailer wasn’t titled in my name, so not only could I not use it on the road, but I also had to keep it under close lock and key for fear that something might happen to it.
My local DMV gave me a plate when I turned in the original title and the trailer was covered on my insurance policy from day one. But having a valid title in my name was the only legally-binding way to prove I hadn’t stolen the thing.
Once I had waited for the notice from the Department of Revenue, waited for the seller to resolve the title issue, and waited to receive the new title in my name, it ended up taking nearly six months for me to acquire a valid title for my car trailer. For most of that time, I could have been getting dragged along in a scam and wouldn’t have known it.
With that said, let’s talk about…
All the Ways I Could Have Been Scammed
There were many times when this pleasant tale could have taken a hard left, going from a minor headache to a protracted legal battle quicker than I could say, “I got scammed on Craigslist.”
The seller could have intentionally given me the title to another trailer. I would have walked away with an illegal and outdated title, one that didn't match what I bought, but because it’s a trailer with no obvious branding I wouldn’t have thought anything about it. All the money I spent on that trailer could have vanished – along with the seller – into thin air.
The seller could have used the good title to sell a different trailer to someone else.
The trailer could have been stolen and sold to me using an old title that was somehow stolen as well.
At any time when the seller possessed a valid title and I didn’t, he could have pulled a fast one and held it hostage, demanding that I pay him more money for the good title.
If I had paid for the trailer on Monday and returned to pick it up on Wednesday, the seller could have sold it to someone else in the meantime using the real title, a mistake I made years ago.
This clearly could have gone wrong in a million ways. To all the would-be thieves out there, each of those scenarios could have been resolved so long as I had a good bill of sale with the seller’s information on it. It might have taken a while and it might have involved going to court, but it would have ended with justice.
The Seller Could Have Been Just Plain Difficult
When I first called and explained the situation about the title, the seller could have replied, “That’s not my problem.” I would have then had to convince the DMV that I was the trailer’s rightful owner, which would take a long time and could involve going to court. But overall, I’m just lucky he wasn’t a huge pain to deal with. He never asked for any extra money, he kept in constant contact with me, and he made sure the whole process went as smoothly as possible. And most importantly, he didn’t disappear like all the space I used to have in my garage before this trailer came along.
How Could This All Have Been Avoided?
For every time this sort of thing goes well for someone, it goes horribly wrong for someone else. Luckily, there are a couple ways to get ahead of this situation before it even begins.
If a VIN number is present, a cursory VIN check would have revealed a replacement title had been issued, corroborating the seller’s story and giving me a heads-up before the deal was made. I could have then asked for the title number and given it to my local DMV to determine if that was the most recent title on file.
Worst case, Dirt Legal offers title recovery services for just about anything with wheels. I could have skipped all those months of waiting and wondering and instead gotten a new title and license plates in my name in only a matter of weeks.
In my situation the best course of action was to obtain a Bill of Sale with the seller’s information listed in detail. This would provide proof that I had legally obtained the trailer and I could use those details to hold the seller accountable.
Somehow It All Turned Out Fine
Today the trailer and I are living in harmony. It’s a willing party to my hoarding antics and I can’t tell you how many times it has paid for itself just from rescuing myself from the side of the road. No more rentals for this guy; if a rusty Volkswagen pops up on Craigslist at 6:00 PM I can be there by 9 with a trailer and cash in hand. If that ain’t the good life, I don’t know what is.
We are not attorneys. This article is not legal advice. Cover image source
In most cases it is possible to replace a lost or missing car title by presenting sufficient proof of ownership to your local DMV. You can also replace a missing title that somebody else lost.