$1.8 million worth of luxury RVs stolen

Not that I'd endorse this, mind you... But why couldn't you buy the carcass of a late model Newmar moho wrecked. CoPart.com will have them frequently. Show up, flatbed the wrecked coach to your rented warehouse, strip it down to pieces that you toss in a dumpster until just the frame and powertrain are left. Haul those to your local wrecking yard after carefully removing all VIN cards. Next, proceed to your local DMV and request a salvage title for your "repaired" RV.

Is the DMV inspector really going to know the difference between a "restored" 2010 Newmar and a brand new 2016?

I sincerely hope it's not that easy!

People who rebuild, or build their own cars get a "State Assigned Vin" or should, one shoudl never use a "used" vin plate.. An Original Vin place should not be available save from the Original source. And I would not want to use one, Too much chance of "Wants and Warrants" and.... well... I was once rather good at helping folks with wanted vins regret having them. Even have a few very funny stories about some of them.. Oh they thought they had the perfect plan for stealing a car.. Almost worked too, Save for a police dispatcher who went the extra inch. (not even a yard, just an inch, or two).

One "Customer" had forged a Title for his out of state stolen car (The car was from out of state, the Theft was local however). Since the theft was local our DMV had a record of it.. But since the plates on it at time of theft were out of state the In-State plates he'd gotten with his forged title were "Clean and proper".. As I said, i went the extra inch he went to jail.

He was not the only one to do this.. Plus some DMV branch managers will accept alternative paperwork, Say a couple photographs of someone like Andrew Jackson or some other Dead President. You dn't have proper title.. just hand him/her the paperwork with the Presidental Portraits included and it gets processed as though you did.

One of my co-workers used to work for DMV, she and one of "my" detectives had a chat and suddenly I'm running 1,000 license plates (All issued by the same branch) every night..

Several DMV branches got new managers a few days later.

This scam would work on any vehicle from a Small "Motor cycle" to a Million dollar plus RV. But.. It does not work if so much as one Police Dispatcher is as good as I was.. And in the state where I worked, Now, Thanks to some computer upgrades.. nearly all of them are. For my method of catching auto thieves is now the standard state wide and in several subscribing states as well.

Replacing the VIN on the plate under the windshield is not as easy as it used to be.

I would never buy a vehicle without checking the VIN out and the title to make sure everything looks legit.

wnjj wrote:
Oregon absolutely checks VIN's on out of state transfers. Which states are these that are laundering stolen vehicles?

Even if they do they typically only check the VIN on the plate in the windshield, not the other places on the vehicle where the VIN is recorded. Getting a "replacement" VIN plate for the windshield is also very easy to do - just do a Google search and you'll find lots of people offering them. They are used a lot by people who restore or rebuild old cars.

Oregon absolutely checks VIN's on out of state transfers. Which states are these that are laundering stolen vehicles?

CavemanCharlie wrote:

bob_nestor wrote:

wnjj wrote:
Farm and construction equipment aren't titled and registered like coaches are. I don't see these things staying in the States.

A couple of years ago a co-worker bought a used luxury car here in Texas. It had a clean title. A few months later the Feds showed up at his front door and informed him the vehicle was stolen in New Jersey and they were impounding it, but they knew he hadn't done anything wrong. He was left with a car loan and no car. The credit union advised him to report the car as stolen (from him by the Feds) so that his insurance could pay off the loan.
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Something sounds fishy here. Not on your friends part. But, how did he get a car with a clean title unless the owner signed the title?

We will never know but, it might be part of a divorce or angry couple type thing. That happens a lot. I've had friends that got stuck paying for stuff because there EX charged stuff to them after they split. They had to run a advertisement in the paper saying "I am only responsible for my own debts" or something like that.

Actually getting a "clean" title on a stolen vehicle is so simple a caveman could do it thanks to computers, modern technology and the Feds. A simple internet search for vehicles similar to the one you want to retitle will pull up VIN numbers that are in the Fed database used by all States. Preferably you want a VIN number for a vehicle not currently titled in the State you want to retitle in. Then you print up what looks like a valid title for the State the legal vehicle is titled in and forge the signature for surrender. Take that to a new State and tell the underpaid/overworked clerk you just bought a vehicle from out of State and you need a new title. Most of the time they won't know what the proper format is for an out of State title and they won't even check the vehicle to make sure the VIN number matches, they'll just issue you a new title after checking the Fed database to make sure it's valid. Then you're all set to sell it on Ebay or Craigslist. The problem comes in for the original VIN owner when they go down to get new license plates for their vehicle because that's when they'll discover their VIN was transferred and according to the Fed database they no longer own the vehicle in question.

years back, don't know about currently, WVa was a non-title state. bring a vehicle in with bill of sale, license it in WVa,then "move" to another state and title it.
bumpy

Back in the day if a motorcycle was stolen you didn't report it to the police or the insurance co. because a clean title was worth more than the bike was

It used to be pretty common up here for crooks to be buy vehicles that had been 'written off' or just in really poor condition, just to get the VIN tag and ownership of that VIN.

They then just had to switch the VIN tag to a stolen (or heavily financed) vehicle and sell the now 'legitimate' vehicle.

bob_nestor wrote:

wnjj wrote:
Farm and construction equipment aren't titled and registered like coaches are. I don't see these things staying in the States.

A couple of years ago a co-worker bought a used luxury car here in Texas. It had a clean title. A few months later the Feds showed up at his front door and informed him the vehicle was stolen in New Jersey and they were impounding it, but they knew he hadn't done anything wrong. He was left with a car loan and no car. The credit union advised him to report the car as stolen (from him by the Feds) so that his insurance could pay off the loan.



.

Something sounds fishy here. Not on your friends part. But, how did he get a car with a clean title unless the owner signed the title?

We will never know but, it might be part of a divorce or angry couple type thing. That happens a lot. I've had friends that got stuck paying for stuff because there EX charged stuff to them after they split. They had to run a advertisement in the paper saying "I am only responsible for my own debts" or something like that.