Having your car stolen is not a pleasant experience but it gets a lot worse when the police find it and decline to handle it back to you claiming it was already stolen and belongs to someone else. This is exactly what happened to Becki Brickley from Fort Wayne, Illinois, who thought she rightfully owned a used Kia Sportage after buying from a local dealership.
Becki’s ordeal began on August 10 when her SUV got stolen, 8 months after buying it used from Grote Automotive in Fort Wayne. Following a joyride, the black fourth-generation Kia Sportage ended up crashing into a backyard where it was abandoned by thieves. When the woman tried to collect her vehicle, the police officers said that her Kia was reported stolen in a different and still active case, with another person listed as the owner.
According to 15 Finds Out on Wane, the police reports suggest that the Kia was originally stolen from a driveway in Hazel Crest, Chicago in September 2022. The owner had reported it to the police but a few weeks later he was contacted by a tow company that had impounded the vehicle asking him to pay fees in order to get it back. The man didn’t agree with that so the SUV was sold at an auction on December 2022. This is where the used car dealer from Fort Wayne legally acquired it before selling it to Becki in January 2023.
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The problem is that throughout this process the vehicle’s stolen status was not resolved. According to the detective who wrote the police report, the agency wasn’t notified. Still, he questions how the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles didn’t “catch” the stolen status before issuing a new title for the Kia in the state, something they were required to do.
The dealership says they followed all rules and regulations, as the used Kia Sportage came with a clean title and vehicle auto check. They claim that the only way to reveal the stolen status would be to “run the vehicle identification number through the national police database” which can’t be accessed by a dealer or an auction site, blaming both the States of Illinois and Indiana for “processing a title that had any pending issues”.
Whoever is at fault, it appears that the victim of all this mess is Becki Brickley, who isn’t able to get her vehicle back. Even the insurance company will need evidence proving that the SUV is hers. The woman wants to return the Kia to the dealership and get her money back, something that is now up to the Indiana Attorney General’s office which will try to mediate an agreement between the two parties.
Interestingly, this is not the first time someone unknowingly buys a stolen vehicle from a trusted dealer. Some weeks ago, an Atlanta man got into serious trouble after his legally purchased car got impounded from his driveway due to it being stolen beforehand.
