A man in Atlanta learned the hard way that even large car retail companies can sell stolen cars after his Carvana vehicle was repossessed a year after he bought it.
Anthony Williams bought a Ram 1500 Big Horn from Carvana on August, 20 2022. He drove it for a year almost to the day, when the police showed up open day and repossessed the vehicle. It seems that whoever stole the truck was not only sophisticated enough to fool Carvana, but Georgia’s DMV as well, according to WSB-TV:
The Georgia Department of Revenue says in this case there was no way for the tag office to spot the fraud.
Thieves used a real VIN and a real title number that belonged to another vehicle and forged documents.
According to the investigative report, there were discrepancies including the font and wording used.
When police and Williams looked closer at his truck, they noticed there were two different VINs on the vehicle. A counterfeit VIN had been placed on the dash, but the real VIN was under the hood.
“The neighbors are looking at me like, okay, what’s going on over there? Did he get his vehicle repossessed? Is he doing some illegal activity? So, it was pretty horrible for me,” Williams told WSB-TV.
Ultimately what tipped investigators off was a mistake on the Carfax vehicle history report. The report showed that the same day Carvana listed the truck for sale, it was also being serviced down in Florida. The mileage on both of those entries was different as well.
To add insult to injury, Williams spent more than a month trying to get his money back from Carvana. Only after WSB-TV’s investigative team contacted the company did it agree to give Williams a refund. As for Carvana, the company issued a statement saying this was a rare instance of both the company and one of its customers getting duped:
In this unusual case, Carvana and our customer were victims of a sophisticated criminal act. Customer experience is our top priority, and we are taking steps to make it right in this rare instance while staying aggressive in our efforts to protect future customers against bad actors.
It’s rare, but this isn’t the first time Carvana’s been fooled by car thieves. The buyer of a stolen $68,000 Maserati Levante is suing the company, asking for $1 million and an apology after the cops seized his car and Carvana left him holding the bag.