Beware of Fake Pink Slips and Know How to Avoid The Trap of Scamsters

 

Buying a used car can sometimes be a gamble. You take a calculated risk about how the car will function because no amount of evaluation can ever point out to the way the car will behave. You have to rely on your gut feeling or luck to see that you get a fair deal. It is a conscious decision that you take. That is not all! There is another risk that you must be aware of – fake pink slip, a growing menace that has victimized many folks.

The ownership of a car, also known as the title, is determined by the name of the person mentioned in the registration document. This is also known as a pink slip in industry parlance. Used cars may change hands several times, and the pink slip is the document that bears the history of successive owners. By looking at the pink slip, you can make out the number of owners that the car had.

Used car market has gray shades

In the used car market, there are high possibilities of car sellers using fake pink slips just to fool buyers about its history and gain more money from the deal. A lot of stolen cars with fake pink slips find their way into the used car market. As the buyer, you have to be very cautious about the authenticity of the title document of used cars so that you do not become a victim of fraud. Knowing what to look for in original titles and how car thieves manage their operations will help you to identify the real from the fake.

The journey of stolen cars

Have you ever thought what happens to stolen cars? Car thieves liquidate stolen cars in three ways.  Some find their way to other countries, selling the parts of cars after dismantling is the second way, and the third way, which is the most profitable, is to arrange for fake pink slips and sell the vehicle to some buyer. For making fake pink slips, they apply a very sophisticated method of stealing some other car’s identity and superimpose it on the car that they want to sell. This gives a new identity to the stolen car that you will never know about unless you meet with some circumstances that reveal the truth.

The importance of VIN

As a car user, you must be familiar with VIN or Vehicle Identification Number, which is a 17 digit unique number that encapsulates every important detail about the vehicle. From the place of manufacture to the engine type, everything stays recorded on it. VIN is to cars what social security number is to the citizens. You can see the VIN mentioned on the vehicle title and the registration card as well as on insurance documents.

VIN cloning

The National Insurance Crime Bureau has revealed startling facts about how car thieves use sophisticated technology to get VINs cloned. They manage to access the VIN of some other car of the same make and model and use it for making counterfeit VIN plates that they fix on the stolen car. In this way, the stolen car gets a new identity. After that, it is almost impossible for buyers to make out that it is a stolen car. There are too many problems in store for the customer who has ignorantly purchased a stolen car.

The effects of fake identity

Though you may not face any difficulties in using a car that has a fake pink slip, you are sure to encounter a lot of it when you try to sell the vehicle.  The buyer whom you want to sell the car might suddenly discover from the Blue Book that the car has a long history of accidents that you actually have never encountered. You might wonder what is going on, but that is all that has been on record related to the identity of the car that has been faked and passed on to you.

Take guard against cloning

The best way to protect yourself from the possibility of buying a vehicle with fake pink slips is to ensure that you deal with a trustworthy seller. It is a fact that the majority of clandestine selling of cars happen with private sellers, and you have to be extra cautious when dealing with strangers. Do not take dealers at their face value, but judge their genuineness and legitimacy in your own way.

• Visit the seller at the given address to inspect the car and make sure that it is a valid one and not a temporary arrangement for the occasion.
• Check the address with the one on the registration document and make sure that the seller lives there.
• Do not agree to inspect the car at a different location other than the address mentioned on the registration document.
• Check the VIN at all places on the car wherever mentioned to find out if there is any mismatch.
• Match the chassis number of the car with the one described in the registration document.
• Insist on paying by Banker’s check that thieves will never accept.
• The seller’s name and VIN have to be the same on all documents such as title, insurance, and registration.
• Obtain a vehicle history report from a professional agency to unearth the correct history of the car.

By having knowledge about scams and knowing the way the rogues operate in the gray market of used vehicles, you will be able to position yourself much conveniently to avoid the pitfalls of buying a car with a fake identity.

If you have doubts about the pink slip of the car you want to buy, you can seek help from the professionals at https://bayareatitleloans.com/, the car title loan company. Since they deal in car titles, they know best how to identify the original from the fake. Their guidance will save you from making a wrong investment in a used car as you stay away from the ugly trap of car thieves who pose as sellers.