Whitfield County Tax Commissioner Danny Sain said he had to break bad news to a young man he knew earlier this year when he came into his office to retrieve the tags on a used car he had just purchased.
“This guy went to Tennessee and bought a beautiful little car, a 2015 Mustang GT,” Thayne said. “He looked at the title. He makes sure the (vehicle identification number) is correct. He drives it. He drives well, too. So he paid $25,000 cash for the car.” ”
“He brought it here,” Sain said. “We got it into the system. About a year and a half ago, we joined the NMVTIS (National Motor Vehicle Title Information System). Turns out it wasn’t. It was listed as scrap only. But Kentucky allowed them to get a clear title. The owner took it to Tennessee, where he tagged it. I did.”
Thurn said Kentucky is not a member of NMVTIS, and neither was Tennessee in March when the incident occurred.
“Tennessee is working on it right now,” he said.
Sanneh said when she called Georgia authorities to see if they could help the young man, she was told that because the car was listed as a junked vehicle, Georgia law would not allow a tag to be issued.
“He ended up selling it for scrap for $15,000,” Sanneh said. “He lost $10,000.”
Sanneh said the owner may have taken it to another state and tried to sell it.
“But he didn’t do that,” he said. “I was very proud of that.”
Sarne said this is just one of the problems people see when buying cars online. He said he has seen several instances where people are given a copy of the title instead of the title when they buy a car.
“That’s a rare case,” Sanneh says. “What’s more common is that when people buy a car, they get a copy of the title. Not the title, but a copy of the title.”
Why copy the title?
“Well, let’s say I go and buy a car from a private person and I have the rights to it,” Sanneh said. “Copy title. Now I’ll take the car and the original title and pawn every penny it’s worth. If I could get $4,000 for a $10,000 car, I’d do it. Then I’ll sell it for $8,700 and give you a copy of the title. And it doesn’t even have my name on it. It has the original owner’s name on it. So he got $12,700 out of a $10,000 car. is.”
And the new owner has the car with a lien on it.
Krista Smith, acting supervisor with the Tax Commissioner’s Office, said the copies of the titles brought in are exactly the same as the real titles.
“You can only tell by feel,” she said. “Real titles feel like money. These copies feel like regular paper.”
Sane said you should obtain a Carfax vehicle history report before purchasing a used car.
“Carfax is integrated into NMVTIS, so it will show if it’s a wreck or not,” he said.
He said you should obtain a copy of a driver’s license before purchasing a car from an unknown individual.
“If you don’t have a dealership or home to go back to if something goes wrong, get out your phone and take a photo of the seller’s license,” he said. “And if they won’t let you do that, walk away.”
Lt. Paul Woods of the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office said buyers should do their “due diligence” when making a major purchase.