VIN Cloning Scams: What Car Buyers Need to Know

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[00:00:02] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam.

[00:00:04] John Turco: I checked three different VIN sites just to make sure, and every one of them came up, you know, 99% good.

[00:00:14] John Turco: I just walked to him, said, "What's going on?"

[00:00:16] Bob: And what do they tell you?

[00:00:17] John Turco: Yeah. He says, "We're not saying it's this truck, but there's another truck with exact VIN number on it. And one of the two is bad."

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[00:00:33] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.

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[00:00:38] Bob: Imagine pulling up to a doctor's appointment on a typical morning and suddenly being surrounded by police cars blocking you in so you can't drive away, and you have no idea what they want. That's how we're going to begin today's story in a parking lot just outside Cincinnati, Ohio, with flashing lights bathing John Turco and his new pickup truck.

[00:01:04] John Turco: I had a doctor's appointment at 8 o'clock on Thursday morning. And that's when I, I was actually on the phone with my neighbor, I was checking on her husband, he wasn't feeling well. Well she's actually a, a cop around here. And he was a detective. And I was talking to her and I was like, "Wow, there just went three cops flying by. I wonder what they're looking for?" And she was joke..., she says, "Yeah, it's probably you." I said, "I wouldn't doubt it." Then all of a sudden, I see them turn around, come into the parking lot, I'm like, maybe it is me.

[00:01:35] Bob: The joke gets very serious very fast.

[00:01:40] John Turco: Shot in, they all surrounded me, and I'm like, opened the door like, "Am I late for my appointment or what's going on?"

[00:01:50] Bob: John's about to have the strangest doctor's appointment he's ever had. In fact, at least at the moment, he's not going anywhere. The cops tell him to get out of the truck, slowly.

[00:02:03] John Turco: Yeah, oh yeah. Keep 'em up, walk backwards and all that stuff, you know.

[00:02:08] Bob: Walk backwards?

[00:02:09] John Turco: Yeah, you know one of those deals, you know. But I did.

[00:02:13] Bob: And as he is walking backwards slowly with his hands up, police tell him there's something going on with that new pickup truck of yours. Something going on with my new truck that required a bunch of police cars to surround me in a parking lot? Let's back up a bit. How did this truck come into John's life? Well, a couple of weeks earlier, John was in the market for a new, used pickup truck, and he went on Facebook Marketplace as he's done before.

[00:02:43] John Turco: Yeah, I bought a couple of them actually for my kids.

[00:02:47] Bob: You have? Tell me about those purchases. How, how, what cars did you get?

[00:02:50] John Turco: It was just like a, a Chevy Cruze for my one daughter, you know, it wasn't an expensive car, but it was a, like a $6000 car. I always, you know, most people want cash, so they don't want to mess around, so I always take the cash with me, you know, 'cause everybody's like, "You pay with cash?" I'm like, "Well yeah, most people, that's what they want anyway. Most of the time you'll the vehicle if you've got the cash in your hand."

[00:03:16] Bob: So when you bought your daughter's car you, did, you said you bought another car for another one of your kids?

[00:03:19] John Turco: Yes. I remember that transaction, but it was the same way. I'm trying to remember what her car was about 10 years ago. I think it was a Dodge Durango, I think is what hers was, but yeah.

[00:03:31] Bob: John is a more sophisticated used car buyer than most. He even have family in the business.

[00:03:38] John Turco: Uh, my brother was, yes, he was in the, he did it for about 10 years also, so I kinda know the ins and outs a little bit more than most people.

[00:03:47] Bob: Sure, what, what did your brother do?

[00:03:49] John Turco: He did, he sold some, he had a car lot for a while, for about 10 years.

[00:03:53] Bob: Selling used cars.

[00:03:54] John Turco: Yes.

[00:03:55] Bob: In fact, when it comes time for John to buy a pickup truck, it's his brother who finds the first lead.

[00:04:02] John Turco: Yeah, I'd been looking and uh, I've been, I had a big issue with a, a new Ford that I bought, and it turned into a big nightmare, so I got rid of it and was looking for a truck and my brother, the one that had the car lot, he's always looking. Well he was in Florida, actually. And he sent me this one. He said, "Hey, you really need to check this one out."

[00:04:23] Bob: You really need to check this one out, big brother says. Okay.

[00:04:28] Bob: It was a, a Dodge Ram. It was a uh, 2021. It was white, and you know, he sent some pictures, so you could tell the interior was pretty trashed up and the paint didn't look great, you know what I'm saying. I mean it was dirty and things like that, so it wasn't...

[00:04:44] Bob: It was not a cream puff.

[00:04:45] John Turco: Correct.

[00:04:47] Bob: But it's got real promise, and the price is right. It's no steal, it's still almost $30,000, but that's a good price for this truck, so John reaches out to the seller who says, yes, it's still available, and John asks the seller to call.

[00:05:05] John Turco: I always ask them to give me a call, because I don't want to do it over the, I mean I want to talk to somebody, make sure it's legit too. So he did call me and he actually, he ran on. I asked for some more pictures. So he took pictures of it and sent them to me, and he took a video and sent them to me.

[00:05:23] Bob: The video and the additional pictures are enough to sell John on the truck. He wants to jump at the opportunity.

[00:05:31] John Turco: And I said, "Hey, I could probably run up there today still and do this if you want." And he said, "Well, I don't really know you and you don't know me, so why don't we just wait till daylight and I'll meet you first thing in the morning." I said, "Okay, that sounds, sounds good to me. I prefer that." And then he was like, um, you know, "I gotta take my kids to school at 8:30, and it takes me about 30 minutes to get back to the house, so just meet me at 9 o'clock."

[00:05:59] Bob: When you're buying a car, there's always the fear that waiting a day might mean someone else has bought the car by the time you arrive. But still, John is cautious enough and decides he's fine with waiting till the morning. That gives him plenty of time to do his due diligence anyway.

[00:06:15] John Turco: So I checked three different VIN sites just to make sure, and every one of them came up you know 99% good.

[00:06:23] Bob: Now, now what's, what's a VIN site?

[00:06:26] John Turco: They, where they can run, you can run a vehicle's VIN number through it. And it should tell you the history of the vehicle.

[00:06:35] Bob: All the sites indicate there are no problems with the car, no hidden accidents or whatnot. But John still isn't satisfied. He calls his brother to see if there's anything more he can do.

[00:06:47] John Turco: He called one of his buddies that's a, a car dealer, and he ran it through his site, and it came up good. And he said, "Yeah, that's legit."

[00:06:56] Bob: So green flag number two. But John doesn't even stop there.

[00:07:03] John Turco: I called, myself, I called the, a Dodge dealer because they have records of all around the country, you know, their service records now. So I had called a local one and said, "Hey, here's this VIN number. Can you look it up for me and see what's been done to it?" And she did, and she said, "Yeah, it was just serviced back in uh, I think it was like June of '24." And I was like, well that's good. That's about, she said it was for a recall. And I said, okay, that's okay. She said, that's, you know, that's all I need to hear. I just wanted to make sure it's real.

[00:07:35] Bob: The dealer also confirms that a little bit about the geographic history of the car.

[00:07:42] John Turco: It was serviced in Tennessee, so when I was talking to the seller, he told me used to live in Tennessee, and he just moved back up here to Indiana, and the title would be a Tennessee title. So that lined up with the call that I made prior them telling me that it was serviced in Tennessee.

[00:08:10] Bob: And he takes one more step before committing to go see the truck.

[00:08:15] John Turco: I called my insurance company, and ran the VIN there, and made sure I could get full coverage. And they said, yes. I said, "I'll let you know tomorrow, but just keep, I'm probably buying it, so just that way when I get up there, I'll be covered."

[00:08:33] Bob: So everything the seller has told John checks out. That's enough for him to wake up at 4 am and drive to Indiana where the seller is. It's a long drive, but John even takes along a friend.

[00:08:46] John Turco: I took a buddy of mine; he's a real good mechanic.

[00:08:50] Bob: Uh, wow.

[00:08:51] John Turco: Yeah.

[00:08:51] Bob: Seriously, all the precautions you took are way over and above what most people have the opportunity to do, so.

[00:08:56] John Turco: Yeah, he's a big motorhead there, basically, and I just paid him for his day at work and said, come on, I need ya. I don't want to get stuck.

[00:09:07] Bob: A little less than five hours later, they arrive at the meeting place; the seller's home address.

[00:09:13] John Turco: Well we pulled up and he wasn't quite there yet, and he come pulling in about 3 or 4 minutes later, and pulled up there and um...

[00:09:22] Bob: In, in the truck?

[00:09:22] John Turco: You know, we looked it over. Yeah, he was in the truck. So we test drive it and everything checks out. Looks good, you know. It's uh about what I thought it was going to be. So...

[00:09:34] Bob: I mean was it love at first sight? Did you, you know, when you saw the truck?

[00:09:38] John Turco: Uh, kinda. I mean I just knew it was going to be a little rough, which it was, you know. The inside and it, it needed a good, good bath.

[00:09:46] Bob: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:09:47] John Turco: On the inside and out, it really needed that. So uh, other than that, it's fine, you know, I overlook all that kind of stuff.

[00:09:56] Bob: His mechanic friend gives it a good once over too. And everything looks good. So John's ready to make a deal.

[00:10:06] John Turco: So he had the title in his hand, and it was a legit cardboard stock type title, you know, they're heavy. And it was a Tennessee title. It was um, everything he said. VIN number was on it. It matched the door, it matched the dashboard, everything looked good. So...

[00:10:23] Bob: So John pulls out the cash as he usually does in this situation. $28,500 in cash. And he hands it to the seller. And the seller signs over the title to him.

[00:10:37] Bob: It's a big wad of cash.

[00:10:39] John Turco: Yeah, it was. Everybody’s like, "You took that much cash?" I was like, "Well, I wanted the truck and I didn't have time for the banks to open and get it and do all of this or it'd been gone."

[00:10:51] Bob: With new title and keys in hand, John and his mechanic friend jump in the two vehicles now and drive back home in tandem. The truck rides like a dream.

[00:11:02] John Turco: So it was all good and I texted on the way back, told him thanks, you know, he answered me back. Everything was good.

[00:11:09] Bob: And he pretty much goes straight to the DMV.

[00:11:14] John Turco: So when I got back with the truck I went and got the title put in my name. So I took it to Ohio DMV. Well they do an out-of-state inspection. So they walk around the truck, check the VIN number, check the title, you know. And they gave me a new title. So I got the title in my hand and I go over and I get license plates, everything’s gold. So they took my $1850, for tax and everything...

[00:11:39] Bob: That's the sales tax essentially, right?

[00:11:41] John Turco: Yeah.

[00:11:42] Bob: And with the title in hand, he heads to the bank essentially to get that $28,500 back to turn it into a loan payment.

[00:11:52] John Turco: So I give the bank the VIN number and they ran everything and said, "Yeah, we can borrow, you can borrow that money on this. It's fine." I said, okay, great. So everything was lined up, you know, everything checked out.

[00:12:06] Bob: But you, you had to get the loan after you bought the truck.

[00:12:08] John Turco: Yes.

[00:12:09] Bob: Essentially, yeah, yeah.

[00:12:10] John Turco: Yeah, so I just brought it back and about a week later I went up there and just, you know, swapped the title out for a check.

[00:12:19] Bob: And then he starts to put a little TLC into the truck.

[00:12:23] John Turco: And then I went to work and I mean I bought like a hard top cover for it. It needed new running boards on the side and you know and I cleaned it for a good two days. Then I changed every filter on it, which it was a diesel, so it's not a cheap oil change, you know just a gallon of that oil is $37, you know. It's takes three, you know and to fill, it's like a $500 oil change if you take it somewhere, you know, and I probably invested about 2500 in it.

[00:12:53] Bob: Including those brand-new running boards he had installed that Wednesday night, really making the pickup his truck. Which brings us to that Thursday morning when he pulls into the doctor's office and all those cop cars pull in behind him.

[00:13:08] John Turco: So you know he says, "Come on out, you know, I want to tell you something about this truck.”

[00:13:15] Bob: So John does as he's told, walks backward with his hands up towards the police.

[00:13:20] John Turco: I just walked to him, said, "What's going on?" (chuckles) But uh...

[00:13:24] Bob: And, and what do they tell you?

[00:13:26] John Turco: Yeah, he's, "We're not saying it's this truck, but there's another truck with exact VIN number on it. And one of the two is bad." I go, great. That sounds awesome.

[00:13:40] Bob: There's another truck with the exact same VIN on it? That doesn't make any sense. Pretty quickly the police tell him he's not in any trouble. They aren't accusing him of anything. He can put his hands down. But the cops say they have to do some research on his car and it'll take a few minutes. And remember, John's in this parking lot because he's going to the doctor. So...

[00:14:01] John Turco: Yeah, I went ahead and I told them, I said, "While you guys are working on this, I'm not missing my appointment, so I'm going on in." They said, "Alright, that's fine." I said, "You got my keys, you can drivers license… "

[00:14:11] Bob: So you got to the doctor, there's six cops still hanging around your truck.

[00:14:15] John Turco: Yeah, and they're all in there, "What did you do? What did you do?" I was like, "I don't know." I said, "I bought a truck, the next thing I know here I am." (chuckles)

[00:14:25] Bob: The visit is routine, just a few minutes, but by the time he comes back out and there's news.

[00:14:31] John Turco: Yeah, I walked back out and he's like, "Yeah, it happens to be, this is, this is stolen." I’m like, "This is unbelievable. How can I get a title with an out of state inspection and license plates and everything be kosher with the state, and now all of a sudden, you're saying this might be stolen? This makes zero sense."

[00:14:51] Bob: Your first reaction must have been there's some kind of mistake, right?

[00:14:53] John Turco: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm like, "Well, hopefully it's the other truck."

[00:14:58] Bob: But the police use a tool to show him the VIN that appears on his car, on the windshield, on the door sticker, well it's not the right VIN for this car.

[00:15:10] John Turco: He has this little gizmo that you can plug into your vehicle and it will read VIN number and other components of the truck should, it’ll read those. And he says, “All we got the dashboard, we got your title, and we got the door,” he said, “and the rest of it doesn’t match.”

[00:15:30] Bob: It doesn't match. The VIN on his title and the VIN on the car that he can see, well the VIN the computer spits out is different. And right then and there police take possession of his pickup.

[00:15:44] Bob: So, so they wouldn't even let you drive home, right?

[00:15:46] John Turco: No, uh-huh, nope, it was theirs. And I said, “Well what about my, I just got done. I just spent all this money. I put this top on it, those runners.” He says, “What’s all on the truck has to go with the truck.” I said, “Well I got to get my property back.”

[00:16:00] Bob: Ultimately police let him remove the running boards though he's not allowed to keep anything, and they drive him home. Where John has a big question mark over his head. How could this happen? He checked the truck several different ways. But more pressing, he now has a $500 a month payment on a truck he no longer has. What's he supposed to do? And what the heck happened anyway? To help us understand, we have Jessica Rust here. She's Director of Intelligence and Analytics at the National Insurance Crime Bureau. She's got a pretty straightforward explanation for what happened. It's called VIN cloning.

[00:16:39] Jessica Rust: So VIN cloning is essentially identity theft, but for cars.

[00:16:44] Bob: Identity theft, but for cars? Let's back up a second. A VIN is a Vehicle Identification Number. It's a 17-digit number that is a unique ID for each vehicle sold.

[00:16:58] Jessica Rust: This is kind of similar to a Social Security number for an individual, so how VIN cloning works is that it starts with a stolen vehicle and then the thieves will locate a similar legitimate vehicle and copy its VIN number. They then take that VIN number, create counterfeit VIN plates and labels and place that onto the stolen vehicle, and then they're looking to resell that vehicle to an unsuspecting buyer and there's often fake ownership documents that go, go with it as well, but it is a pretty sophisticated scheme in terms of just the number of documents they have to counterfeit and stickers, and just the way that they are able to really do a good job of hiding the identity of these stolen vehicles.

[00:17:35] Bob: How good a job? Well they have to find a car that's already a pretty good match for the car that's stolen. A twin, kind of, to not raise suspicion.

[00:17:46] Jessica Rust: A lot of times they will, they will search for the year, make, and model, and even color of the vehicle that they have stolen and a lot of times you can find a, an ad for sale, you know, in another state and they will take the VIN from that car sale ad and put it onto the stolen car so that you know everything matches up; the colors and the year, make, and model. It looks like a good vehicle in every system that you run it in.

[00:18:06] Bob: So that's the part to me that's astonishing that they can find a look alike car and even, and even the mileage is sort of reasonably close, right?

[00:18:14] Jessica Rust: Right, yeah. And then sometimes they will, you know, they'll lie on the title application information that they have and you know manipulate it to look like the mileage matches.

[00:18:23] Bob: So VIN cloning, that's what happened to John. He ran every single test you could think of, and still the car he bought was stolen.

[00:18:34] Bob: So now the, what's the first thing you do when you get home after all this?

[00:18:38] John Turco: Really, I just told the wife, I said, “Hey, uh, evidently my truck was stolen and our money’s gone.” (chuckles)

[00:18:45] Bob: Oh God. And that’s a lot of money.

[00:18:48] John Turco: It was a lot of money.

[00:18:51] Bob: The detective, along with a state trooper who was assigned to investigate these crimes full-time statewide, did explain everything that happened to John.

[00:19:00] Bob: Let me make sure I, I have this picture in my head. They stole a car.

[00:19:03] Detective: Yes.

[00:19:04] Bob: They stole it, they stole this truck.

[00:19:05] Detective: Yes.

[00:19:06] Bob: And then they had to find...

[00:19:07] Detective: They waited...

[00:19:08] Bob: ...a truck that was incredibly similar to it.

[00:19:09] Detective: Yes, they find, what they do is they do that, then they find one that goes onto a, a dealer's lot, because they can get the information that way. And then what's when they hurry up and sell it because how it all got caught, and it took like two and a half weeks, is the, the car, the truck that they copied, they sold it at the dealership when they went to register it, that's when it got caught and said, wait a minute. There's two of these vehicles out here with the same VIN number. So these guys were so good that they were able to duplicate a Tennessee title and they ran the, the mileage up to where it showed when they transferred title, when this guy supposedly bought to where it matched the title on the other truck. So they duplicated everything about that truck and told me the same story and had it all backed up with facts because it was on the title. They were able to print off a factory sticker, that sticker that goes on your door, on the side of the door, of your driver's door, it's got all the information about the vehicle, VIN number and everything, year, build, and everything. They're able to duplicate those and put them on the doors. And they're able to, I don't know if they take the windshield out or what, but they were able to stamp their own VIN number to match it and put it into the dash just like it looked like factory. So car lots, everybody does the same thing. You look at the title, does it match the door? Yes. Does it match the dash? Yes. It's good to go. Nobody goes to the other extreme, you know.

[00:20:40] Bob: It's cold comfort, but the state trooper tells John he did just about everything he could have done to avoid this crime.

[00:20:47] Detective: He said, "You did more than like you were saying, 99% of other people," he said, "but the people you ran into are very good." He said, "They're, you know, they're countrywide."

[00:21:00] Bob: Well I think that's, that's a really important part of the story. Your story, while amazing, is not some weird on-off, right?

[00:21:06] John Turco: No. No, that's what I'm saying. It's happening but nobody here, I've heard of cloning for like 10 years, but I never knew what it meant.

[00:21:13] Bob: Uh-huh.

[00:21:13] John Turco: You know, it's like, what are they talking about cloning? Well I know now. I learned it.

[00:21:18] Bob: I always knew that they did things to alter VINs. I always imagined that just meant like scratching them off or something, you know. This is so much...

[00:21:23] John Turco: Right, and now they, yeah, that's back then. Now they actually can stamp them and put the new one in that they got, like the VIN number that they have.

[00:21:31] Bob: Yeah, that's incredible. Wow.

[00:21:32] John Turco: Yeah. That's what I'm saying, it, that guy that sold to me, there's no way he's got all that technology, he ain't just sitting in his basement doing this.

[00:21:40] Bob: Right, yeah, yeah, he's part of a big team, yeah.

[00:21:42] John Turco: Oh yeah, it's a big countrywide deal.

[00:21:46] Bob: But what about the man who sold John the car? Remember, I told you John was thorough. Well...

[00:21:53] John Turco: So I started, you know, really investigating everything myself, cause I was upset about this. So when I heard more from the detective, we stayed in contact a lot. I was trying to do everything I could because I wanted to get it over with, I want to help hopefully catch this cat. When I was cleaning out the truck, I found this receipt and it said, “One bag of charcoal,” and it was in Illinois, just over the line from where I got this, I’m like, and I saved that receipt. I was like, I'm saving this. For some reason I just felt like I wanted to save it. (chuckles) So I turned that over, I said, look, this guy told me it takes him 30 minutes from his, dropping his kids off to get here. I said, I Google mapped that store that he bought it at, that charcoal at, and to the house that I met him at, and lo and behold, it was 28 minutes. I said, so, that guy lives somewhere within those few blocks of that store in Chicago Heights.

[00:23:02] Bob: Hmm, yeah, sure. Sure.

[00:23:03] John Turco: In the picture that he sent me, there was background. So there was background of like buildings and like, well if you’re a beat cop you know which ones what buildings these are, you know.

[00:23:12] Bob: Yeah, sure.

[00:23:13] John Turco: And it showed the back of his house, it showed everything. So I turned that all over to the detective. And he’s like, he said, “Here’s going to be the problem,” he said, “I’m going to do all I can. We're going to submit all this to Chicago, and to be honest with you, Chicago’s going to be like, ‘we don’t have time for this.’ And that’ll be that.”

[00:23:30] Bob: Man.

[00:23:33] Bob: Okay, enough about the crime. We have a real victim here suffering real consequences.

[00:23:41] Bob: So I know there's, there's several irritating things about this, but, but first of all, you now have a, a what, a loan payment every month, right?

[00:23:49] John Turco: Yeah, so I got this $475 a month payment with, for a piece of paper. It's a pretty nice gig.

[00:23:57] Bob: $475 for how many years?

[00:23:58] John Turco: It was for uh, what was it, 72 months, I think.

[00:24:01] Bob: Oh my God.

[00:24:02] John Turco: I think it was.

[00:24:03] Bob: I mean it would cause me so much pain every time I had to right that check.

[00:24:05] John Turco: Yeah.

[00:24:08] Bob: The bank won't help him. Then he turns to the state office where he paid the sales tax and got his title.

[00:24:15] John Turco: Then I tried to get my tax money back and they said, “Well you got to call the taxation department.” I call them and she goes, “Well you got to get down here and fill this form out. And if we decide to give it back to you, it might take 4 or 5 months.” I’m like, this is just baloney. You guys issued me a title. I have that title, and it was no good. And you're still going to make me try to fill out all this paperwork and hopefully you give me my money back. Are you kidding me?

[00:24:39] Bob: And, and in the meantime, you don't have a truck, right?

[00:24:41] John Turco: Right, right, yeah, so I'm driving around in my daughter's 2011 Chevy Cruze.

[00:24:49] Bob: So there's about $2000 gone. And remember, he put about $2500 into repairs and upgrades. He's got the running boards, but they won't do him much good on that Chevy Cruze. But otherwise, he's out that cash.

[00:25:05] John Turco: I was just like, I, you know, so I did everything I possible could. Everybody okayed it. The bank okayed it. Ohio said it was good. Everybody said it was good but then all of a sudden when it wasn't, everybody else said, oh, it's on you. Like why is it only on me? Everybody said it was good. You guys told me. Got insurance, got a loan, got license plates.

[00:25:29] Bob: The dealer where the car was originally stolen from, well their insurance company was eventually made whole.

[00:25:37] John Turco: The truck, they ended up taking it back to the insurance company which I forget where that was. And they just basically take them and they retitle them, and they have to use a salvage title now. And then, 'cause they, the insurance company already paid where the struck was stolen from. Yes. So...

[00:25:56] Bob: So this is, so they're entitled to the ownership of the, yeah.

[00:25:58] John Turco: They're entitled to their property. So they take it, then they take it to an auction. Well somebody going to get them a nice one, I can tell you that because it was nowhere near as nice as it was when I got it.

[00:26:12] Bob: So John turns to his insurance company and files a theft claim. It's a pretty unusual claim, but...

[00:26:20] John Turco: Yeah. Well I finally did. It took forever but I got about 90% of my money back through my insurance company. I finally got high enough in the organization to where I said, this cannot be the first time. So my insurance company finally did get me the loan paid off. So they paid the loan off, and the...

[00:26:41] Bob: So as if the car were stolen, for example.

[00:26:44] John Turco: Yes.

[00:26:44] Bob: Yeah, okay.

[00:26:45] John Turco: The insurance company filed it through larceny.

[00:26:48] Bob: Got it.

[00:26:50] John Turco: On the policy. So they was able to cover it. So they covered the loan, and they gave me back, I had enough receipts to get like 4 or 5,000 back. So I...

[00:27:04] Bob: Oh wow.

[00:27:05] John Turco: Yeah, so I was only out, after it's all said and done, I was probably out about 3 to 4 grand total, so yes, it's terrible, you know, but it's a hell of a lot, a heck of a lot better than it was. And I, uh, at least can move forward now, but it took months to get through this. I mean I just now got the truck paid off and the loan paid off probably three weeks ago.

[00:27:29] Bob: Congratulations. Now you own the truck, sort of.

[00:27:31] John Turco: Yeah. Yeah, so now I can move on.

[00:27:36] Bob: So does that mean you're, you're shopping for a truck again?

[00:27:38] John Turco: I'm looking around, yeah. I'm still a little gun shy. A little gun shy.

[00:27:42] Bob: Can't imagine why.

[00:27:44] John Turco: I don't either, just do it.

[00:27:46] Bob: Are you looking on Facebook Marketplace?

[00:27:48] John Turco: I still do, yeah. I'm not giving up on humanity just yet. It's close, it's real close, but not just yet.

[00:27:58] Bob: Not about to give up on humanity, not yet anyway. I'm glad John can manage to keep perspective on all this. After being a victim of VIN cloning or what's sometimes called reVINning. It seems like people in Canada use that term more. I couldn't find good statistics on how common this is in the US, but I did find this, Carfax Canada, estimates that about 127,000 vehicles are sporting cloned VINs and that's just in Ontario. Let's hear from Jessica Rust again. She's already told us VIN cloning is basically ID theft for cars, but I want her to talk to us some more about how we can protect ourselves from VIN cloning. Just for reference, I asked her to explain her employer, tell us what the NICB is.

[00:28:42] Jessica Rust: So NICB, the National Insurance Crime Bureau, we are an organization that works with insurance companies and law enforcement to investigate insurance fraud and vehicle theft.

[00:28:50] Bob: So are you a private company? Are you a nonprofit?

[00:28:53] Jessica Rust: Yeah, we're a nonprofit that is funded by the insurance companies. So our goal is to prevent and detect uh insurance fraud, so that includes vehicle theft as well, so we are out there doing investigations and analytics on you know large volumes of data to provide intel to law enforcement or to the insurance companies to help us uh, help protect consumers.

[00:29:15] Bob: John's story, while terrible, is not terribly unusual, she told me.

[00:29:21] Jessica Rust: Yeah, I mean I, I've heard a lot of those stories over the years as we've, as we've investigated these and it's terrible. I, you know, I hate to see somebody lose their car and their money like that, but we, we put out a lot of tips to try to give people advice on what to look for when you're shopping for a used car to hopefully avoid some of this.

[00:29:40] Bob: For starters, criminals have been toying with VINs for a long time. But new technology has made their job much easier.

[00:29:48] Jessica Rust: Yeah, so, so VIN numbers started in the early 80s, and I mean people have been manipulating vehicles to steal them and hide their identity I think since cars were created, but, you know, once we had these VIN numbers they, you know we saw a real, I guess surge of that in the '90s, and then that was when we had some antitheft legislation go into effect that created that National Motor Vehicle Title Information System. So, and that has really cut that down in terms of the, the states do communicate now, so if somebody, if you take a title from one state and put it, you know, take it to a different one, that they will talk back and forth and make sure everything is legitimate, but sometimes it is happening after, you know, after you've taken possession of the car and paid for it. So that's kind of, that black hole of you don't know yet that there's a problem.

[00:30:32] Bob: Is there something that has happened in recent times that has made this newly a problem? Is there some technology upgrade that criminals have or something like that?

[00:30:40] Jessica Rust: So I think it's harder to detect now because they're using more sophisticated technology in terms of like the scanners and printers, like they can make very...

[00:30:48] Bob: The stickers are way better, right, yeah.

[00:30:50] Jessica Rust: ... legitimate looking, yes. So that can make it really hard to, to determine if, if they're even legitimate or not. You know and they just have more knowledge. They know more of the places on the car where there are numbers and you know they're just; they just do a more thorough job of hiding the identity than they maybe did in the past. The real issue for the public is that, that these are using this, using VIN cloning to put these stolen vehicles back into the used car market and they can be very hard to detect for the average car buyer. And really, the consumers, they just lose in these scenarios. They can lose their car; the cash they paid for it.

[00:31:21] Bob: Earlier we compared VIN cloning to ID theft, but there is one major difference. Generally, VINs are public. Imagine if Social Security numbers were public like this? That's why VIN cloning is such a serious problem.

[00:31:35] Bob: I mean all, isn't it true in most states that used car sales are required to list a VIN in, in the ad, isn't that right?

[00:31:41] Jessica Rust: Yes. Yes, so that you can do that title history check and research.

[00:31:46] Bob: So there's no way to keep the VIN a secret like the Social Security number a secret.

[00:31:49] Jessica Rust: Correct. And they are, I mean the VIN on your dashboard is considered a public VIN so there, there really is not, not a way to not have that information out there. Like you need it to be able to research the vehicle, but at the same time the thieves have figured out how to take advantage of that.

[00:32:03] Bob: Now it strikes me that this still must be kind of expensive, so it must only, I don't want to say only, it's primarily a problem for recent cars, right? Cars that are two, three, four years old, not older cars, right?

[00:32:15] Jessica Rust: So we kind of see a mix. It really depends. I would say you're correct that the majority of it is going to be those newer model cars, 'cause that's where they're going to make the most money. But, I mean, we've seen instances of cloning with classic cars, again, usually a high value associated with those. But yeah, I think it's, it's mostly for newer model cars where they are, you know, looking to steal a car, turn it, you know, flip the VINs essentially and get money as quickly as possible.

[00:32:39] Bob: And maybe this is a dumb question, but is this only a problem in the used car market, or is there some new car market element to this?

[00:32:45] Jessica Rust: Um, it's really just in the used car market. Usually for new vehicles, you're getting it, you know, directly from a dealership for that manufacturer and they're, you know, they're starting out with a manufacturer certificate of origin versus a, a title from another state. So it's a slightly different scenario, but really VIN cloning comes down to the used car market.

[00:33:04] Bob: But the crime is so convincing that, well even car dealers can be victims.

[00:33:11] Jessica Rust: So I, I would just say my number one tip would just be really cautious and do your research. So I would be wary of some of those online platforms like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. These are really easy ways for a thief to resell a cloned car. You know, if you're considering a purchase there, I would look into the seller as much as you can. You know have they sold other cars or items on that platform, do they have a history in their account, or did they just join the platform and this is the first thing they're selling. That could be a red flag. Dealerships can also fall victim to these scams so you know we've seen people take a, a cloned VIN and you know turn it in as a, like a trade-in for another car. So sometimes these can be sold through dealerships, so that's just another thing to keep in mind that still be vigilant if you're buying a car from a dealer, but purchasing through a dealer gives you some more protections if there are issues down the road.

[00:33:59] Bob: But you're saying people have actually gone to a dealer and bought a car that that dealer had acquired recently, and it turned out to be a VIN cloned car?

[00:34:06] Jessica Rust: Correct. Yeah.

[00:34:07] Bob: Wow. That's crazy.

[00:34:09] Jessica Rust: Yeah, yeah, and a lot of it is, you know there are more and more dealerships that will just buy your car, so it's maybe it's not even a trade-in where you're buying another car, it's just you sell your car to them. And so that's kind of a quick way to, you know, hey I need, I have this stolen car that I've changed the VIN numbers on. I want to get rid of it quickly, and you know, they'll take it and sell it to a dealer essentially.

[00:34:29] Bob: Yeah, and again to me, if, if this happens to a dealer, wow, how the heck is a private purchaser supposed to protect themselves? That seems pretty overwhelming.

[00:34:36] Jessica Rust: Right, yeah, I mean I think there's a lot of things that consumers can do. Like you know a couple other things are, you know, to be very wary of a good deal. I see this a lot where the thieves will sell these cars at a low price to move them fast and, and get people to overlook some of the red flags, so I think it's important to know the market value of the vehicle you're looking for, and if you're seeing a car for sale and it's 10, 15, 20 thousand less than the market value, that should be a red flag and not a, oh, it's a good deal, I'm going to jump on it.

[00:35:06] Bob: So let's begin there. If someone is selling a car thousands of dollars below book value, well that's almost certainly a red flag. But there are other things to look for.

[00:35:18] Jessica Rust: One thing I would say is if you are inspecting a car that you're interested in buying is to look very closely at all of those VIN plates and VIN labels and stickers on the car. You know, you've got the one on your dashboard, there's some of the driver's side door jamb or under the hood, but I would look at those very closely and make sure like does, does this look like something that came off the factory line by a manufacturer? You know is the text clear? Is it straight, you know just is it, is the outline of it cut out in a normal way? Um, you know another thing to look out for is the adhesive on it. So these labels are made to kind of self-destruct if you take them off, so you should not be able to easily peel off any label on the car anywhere. So that's something that I found that is kind of a red flag you can that a, an average user might be able to find.

[00:36:03] Bob: But perhaps her most important tip is this.

[00:36:07] Jessica Rust: So cloning almost always occurs using an out of state titles, so you want to make sure the seller's name and VINs match on all the documents, that everything looks legitimate. You know if somebody is trying to sell you a car using a title that has somebody else's name on it, I would ask a lot of questions.

[00:36:22] Bob: Yeah, in John's situation, the person had just moved into his state or said that, so it was an out of state situation, but he didn't have to go out of state to buy the car but that, that wrinkle was in his story, so.

[00:36:32] Jessica Rust: Right, yes.

[00:36:33] Bob: And almost all VIN clonings you see involve an out of state title, that seems really important.

[00:36:37] Jessica Rust: Yes. Yeah, 'cause usually it's, you know if you, if you take that title to your own state and that VIN's already titled in your state, it's going to be an instant red flag. But if you bring in an out of state title, the, the states will eventually communicate and find that, but they may not catch it on the front end before you know you, before your seller has disappeared.

[00:36:55] Bob: Okay, I'm really glad you said that. I hadn't thought about that, but of course, there, you're going to, some computer in-state is going to say, wait, this VIN's already registered, so we have a double VIN situation here. Interesting.

[00:37:05] Jessica Rust: Right.

[00:37:06] Bob: Okay.

[00:37:07] Jessica Rust: Yes. Yes, and we found really that they, you know, any time we put up a road block, they get creative and find a way around it. Cloning was a bigger issue, maybe in the 1990s and 2000s, and then the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System was set up which allows those state DMVs to communicate. We saw a drop in cloning after that, so that was when they came, when they started doing counterfeit VINs and some of these other things, but I mean cloning has still, still been a continual problem, but they, they kind of changed up the way they were doing it too. We don't see quite as many what I'll call a domestic clone so it's you know it's titled in two different US states at the same time, but we see a lot of clones between Canada and the US, so those systems aren't communicating, so you know, if I can find a VIN for sale in Canada, you know I, maybe I could put that on the stolen vehicle here and, and sell that car and that is less likely to have any other red flags. So again, another thing for consumers to keep in mind if you have Canadian history in a vehicle title record, you may want to look at that vehicle closer.

[00:38:04] Bob: Here's a really critical question. When this happens to consumers, will their regular comprehensive car insurance coverage cover this kind of theft? Remember, John was smart enough to make sure he had coverage the moment he picked up the pickup truck. The answer is not as clear as you'd like.

[00:38:22] Jessica Rust: So it, it seems to depend. It's not like kind of a standard claim that you would have, but I have seen instances where, you know, people that are longtime customers that sometimes had this type of claim paid by their insurance company as just as like kind of a theft claim. But it would really depend on your specific insurance companies, your policy, your history with the company. So it's not a guarantee that if this happens to you that your insurance company will cover it.

[00:38:47] Bob: One aspect of this crime that interested me, it's very public. A person has to show up with a title and a car, there could very well be cameras. In the age of digital only crimes, this is very different especially when you consider some of these criminals go to car dealers.

[00:39:04] Bob: I mean if somebody walks into a dealer and gives them a, I'm stunned at this brazenness of this crime.

[00:39:10] Jessica Rust: Yes, yeah, I mean we see a lot of like fake IDs that go along with this, so you know you'll see somebody will, somebody thinks they're doing their due diligence and they are taking pictures of IDs and you know they have phone numbers for the person they bought the car from, and they, they think they're covered and then when questions come up later it's, it's not a valid ID. That cell phone there was a burner phone, it's not valid anymore, and you have no recourse to contact the seller who gave you a stolen car.

[00:39:36] Bob: Hmm, yeah. That's just amazing to me. So one of the things that John concluded from his incident, uh was that while the sticker can be replicated and make it look just like a dealer sticker, it's pretty hard. They can even change the thing on the windshield, um, they, they can't really change the thing that's in the computer, and so if people are using those, those OBD readers, um, that would spit out an accurate VIN. And so he recommended that everybody use one of those when they buy a used car. Is that something you guys recommend?

[00:40:05] Jessica Rust: So I think it's a, I think it's a good idea. I think you should use every tool in your toolbox to, you know, kind of vet out a vehicle. But I will say we have seen very sophisticated rings that are stealing vehicles and cloning them, and they have found workarounds for that. They are reprogramming computers, they are installing bypass units, so it's, it's not a guarantee if you use an OBD reader, but um, you know our, it's another tool you can kind of use to check.

[00:40:34] Bob: How have car dealerships reacted to this crime?

[00:40:37] Jessica Rust: They do more due diligence than they have in the past in terms of making sure the vehicles they're, you know, taking in or selling are legitimate. It gets a little tricky if it is, you know, a Ford dealership selling a, you know, a Chevy truck that somebody traded in. They don't have the access to the same records, so you know they, they do what they can, but you know you can't, you can't see every record everywhere, so you know I, I think they try to do what they can, but it, it's kind of, they're kind of in a tricky spot too of they have limited information at times and they're taking cars in and trying to move inventory quickly.

[00:41:09] Bob: And how has the insurance industry reacted to this crime? For starters, they work with dealers.

[00:41:15] Jessica Rust: So they, we work very closely with them and you know they, they are very good about sharing information to help us, you know, investigate these cars. One of the things we do at NICB is a lot of data analytics to try to catch these cars before they make their way to the used market, or as quickly as possible so they're not continually resold to additional unsuspecting buyers. So the insurance company's a great partner in that way, you know they, they just provide us a lot of support in the investigations to, to ensure we are, you know, getting the full picture of a vehicle so we can ensure they're legitimate.

[00:41:46] Bob: When will state DMV databases talk to each other enough to prevent this crime?

[00:41:51] Jessica Rust: But I, I do think that they are, you know they're continually looking to improve that system to get more data into it, to have faster response times, so you know I think that that's something we'll see improve over the years. It's just a matter of the resources needed to do that.

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[00:42:08] Bob: For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:42:25] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you are not alone. Call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next. Our email address at The Perfect Scam is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org, and we want to hear from you. If you've been the victim of a scam or you know someone who has, and you'd like us to tell their story, write to us. That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; Researcher, Becky Dodson; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; and our Audio Engineer and Sound Designer, Julio Gonzalez. Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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