An unfortunate thing that must always be kept in mind when shopping for cars online, is the possibility of scam artists. One of the worst you can fall victim to is buying a stolen car, not only do you have the morality of driving someone else’s car to deal with, you have possible legal troubles to deal with too. This article will explain what happens if you buy a stolen car and how to prevent it from ever happening.
You’ll Get Arrested
There’s no real way to sugar coat this, as soon as the authorities find out that the car is stolen you’re going to get dragged off to the station. The most common way this happens is when the new owner takes the car to be registered and the person at the desk finds out the car is already registered to someone else and calls the police. But the same will happen if you’re ever pulled over for speeding or if you try and sell it off.
You may think the police would give you leniency, after all you didn’t know the car was stolen right? Well unfortunately “I didn’t know it was stolen” is a pretty common defence by the actual thieves and even if you can provide proof of a sale, it’s a stolen car so they’re going to be untrusting of any evidence provided.
You’ll most likely be charged with ‘possession of stolen property’ and ‘evading punishment’ at minimum which can at best have a hefty fine and at worst jail time, of course no matter what the stolen car will be taken off of you and returned to its original owner, the police aren’t going to give you a refund on that sale.
Is There Anything To Do?
If you’ve already bought the stolen car, all you can really do is damage control, if you figure out it’s stolen before the authorities do, find all the sales details including the name of the seller and take the car in yourself, you’ll probably still be detained but you may be able to avoid the ‘evading punishment’ charges and your in a better position to explain yourself if you go in prepared.
No matter what the stolen car is a sunk cost, there’s no getting that money back unless you’re willing to track down and sue the original seller for damages in a lengthy legal battle, but if they sold you a stolen car, they’re probably long gone.
How To Avoid Buying a Stolen Car
Well that all sounds horrible, how can you avoid all this hassle? Well it’s actually not too difficult as long as you have the car’s VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). Printed on the dashboard facing the windscreen there should be a 17 digit code, this code is how the car is tracked on information databases, and you can look it up on the police database, if the car was stolen it’ll tell you there.
Of course if you do find out it was stolen you’re legally required to report it, but frankly if you find someone’s stolen car that’s the right thing to do anyway.
Thanks for reading! Hopefully now you have a better understanding of what happens if you buy a stolen car. If you have any more questions, please contact us here.