Originally published at: Used car scammer annoyed by pesky journalist | Boing Boing
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You might think this exposure would send this cheap grifter scuttling into the shadows. Nope. He’ll be back selling his junk cars, probably under the same FB account* (the Israeli flag is an interesting touch) within 48 hours. It’s an addictive rush for these creeps.
[* which I’m sure Zuck will let stand]
ETA: here he is a decade ago getting in trouble for acting as a “dog flipper” while running a fake animal rescue.
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I agree with the newsreader at the end: “Oh man, good story!”
Also a good reminder to steer far and clear of FBook Marketplace.
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I love seeing guys like this get caught. I imagine there are lots more like him that don’t. But it isn’t clear from the story whether he’ll be arrested or whether he’ll get away with it.
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I mean, he’s selling a 10+ year old car with 125k+ miles on it. The buyer’s spidey-sense should already be tingly. Checking Carfax info should be a must before even seeing the car.
He’s a scumbag for selling lemons like this, but is it fraud? Probably. Because I’ll bet there’s a fine line, that he’s too inept to stay on the correct side of. For example, if he makes concrete assurances about the car’s worthiness that he knows are false.
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Absolutely fraud, and no “fine line” about it. He’s representing a thrice-owned car bought by him for scrap as one owned only by his relative that’s in good working condition.
Whatever blame one might care to assign to the victim (not much in this case, IMO) a career grifter like this scumbag is still a grifter.
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Caveat emptor
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Have you ever been desperate for a car to get to your work, but you can’t afford any of the usual used cars?
This criminal uses other people’s desperation to commit fraud. That makes him a lower scumbag than someone stealing outright.
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Any of you guys looking for pre 1975 cars in Craig’s List, a huge red flag is “matching numbers” statement from the seller. I have busted dozens of folks on that one, it’s “junk flippers” dead give away. A matching numbers pre 1975 vehicle is unusual to find, and it wouldn’t be advertised on CL, it would be in a vintage auto sale magazine or a specific website tho caters to that particular customer.
Thanks for listen’n to my Car Talk.
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I’ve listened to your car talk plenty, but it doesn’t have a whole lot to say. I tried asking your Harley to interpret, but it just kept going “potato, potato, potato.” 
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Has a used car salesman ever described a car as anything other than being from someone in their family? I recall my father and a coworker, both level-headed engineers, telling me that the car they bought belonged to the salesman’s wife when describing cars they just bought from a used car dealer.
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Which was tough to even hear over that crowd behind it saying “rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb.”
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You say Lada, I say Javelin.
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This scam is called “curbing”, by the way. Used car salesman take cars off their lot that they can’t sell and pretend to be an individual private seller instead, since people are more trusting in that situation.
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I had a car die in me after 200k miles. It needed a specialist welder to fix the exhaust and just wasn’t worth it. It also needed new brakes, which tempted me to advertise it on Craigslist as “Unstoppable”
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What is he doing that is fraudulent, though? He’s selling a car. A lemon, a virtual wreck, that he got for nothing at an auction, sure. As “his”, when it’s only been his since the auction. But, if you the buyer don’t recognize it as a lemon and a wreck, he’s not (yet) committing a fraud. (Lemon laws, if your state has them, only seem to apply to dealerships, who are explicitly making assurances as to the car’s roadworthiness.) So I think the fraud would only attach if he is making some explicit statement about the car he knows to be false. (Which he could avoid by not making those statements.) Which might make sense if I had any legal knowledge on this subject.
Lying about or misrepresenting the nature and underlying condition of the product he’s selling. Caveat emptor or the buyer’s not being an expert about the product’s workings (see also health products, computers, dogs, etc.) doesn’t change that fact from a legal POV, just a victim-blaming one.
Which he is. He says that the car he’s selling to the undercover had only one owner, needs no work done on it, and that the only reason he’s selling it is because that person was is seriously ill. Is that statement true?
If your answer is “yes”, it’s not misrepresentation. If your answer is “no”, it’s fraud – the kind of consistent behaviour that means this creep can’t work at a sleazy used car dealer.
Specifically, this guy is regularly engaging in the type of fraud Michigan defines as a “yo-yo sale”, where the fact that a car for sale that has a salvage title (or which a court later concludes should have one) is not disclosed by the seller to the buyer.
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In the UK, at least, the buyer also has fewer rights if they buy from a private seller.
If you buy a car from a dealer and something goes wrong with it soon after you buy it, you can either return it for a refund or make the dealer repair it. If you buy from a private seller, you’re SOL. So some dodgy dealers will pretend to be private sellers in the hope that the buyers won’t realise what rights they have.
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