A Georgia man claims that Carvana sold him a stolen truck, which he apparently drove for a year before the police confiscated it. Carvana now asserts that both the company and the man were victims of a complex scheme. While this may be accurate, it’s worth noting that Carvana has encountered similar issues in the past.
Back in September of this year, Tony Williams took to Facebook to share his predicament. He wrote that his Ram 1500 Big Horn had been impounded due to a duplicate title issue, and he placed the blame squarely on Carvana. While his hope might have been to keep the truck at the time, that dream is long since gone.
A report from WPXI confirmed that Williams did everything right. He had a Carfax, he titled the vehicle, and had a normal plate on it. Despite that, the Ram 1500 had two different VIN numbers on it. The one on the dash was a counterfeit that matched a totally different truck in a different state.
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The police identified the authentic VIN under the hood and proceeded to seize the truck from Williams. Carvana says that it’s a victim too though. In a statement to WPXI it said: “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.”
Earlier this year, in March, we reported on a similar incident involving Carvana where they sold a man a stolen Maserati. Strangely, the buyer only discovered the issue three months after the purchase when a service center detected the problem. The question arises: if a shop can identify these issues, why does Carvana encounter difficulties in doing so?
It’s worth noting that in both cases Carvana gave back the purchase price of the vehicle to each former owner. Nevertheless, there are real questions that go unanswered about the dealer.
According to the used-car sales platform, the very first part of their “150-point inspection” is verifying that the vehicle has the correct VIN plate and anti-theft labels. In the case of the RAM, a literal peek at the plate under the hood would’ve revealed the truth in what could’ve been less than a two-minute job.