CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte man thought he scored a great deal on a used minivan, but he was actually scammed by a person who rolled back the odometer making the vehicle appear less used than it really was.
Used car scams aren't a new trick, but experts say odometer rollbacks are on the rise in North Carolina. According to Carfax, this particular type of scam involves sellers tampering with odometer readings to make older cars appear to have fewer miles.
An Tran said the 2015 Honda Odyssey sitting in his driveway looked like a great deal when he found it on Facebook Marketplace in February. He negotiated with the seller and ended up paying $10,600. That price would've been really good if the minivan had the 140,000 miles shown on the odometer. A Carfax report found it actually has around 200,000 miles.
With three young children and his father-in-law living with his family in Mint Hill, Tran was looking for something that could reliably haul the whole family. Affordability was a key factor for him.
"We could never afford a new one with our financial status," Tran said. "And so that's why market we go to Facebook Marketplace."
Tran said it was easy to reach the seller who asked to meet in front of a grocery store.
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"The first time we met, we shook hands, everything was smooth as expected nothing out of the ordinary with that," he recalled.
The asking price for the vehicle was almost $14,000. Tran said for the heck of it, he countered with a low-ball number of $10,600. What happened next took Tran by surprise and was reason to pause.
"He accepted right away and I was just surprised and that was a small [red] flag," Tran said. "So I went home, I shared it with my wife. And then I asked for a VIN through text message. He gave it to me."
Tran said the Carfax history showed a clean maintenance record. Feeling like he'd found an incredible deal, Tran and his wife wanted to jump on the car right away so no one else got it first.
When they met again for the exchange, he said a man claiming to be the seller's uncle convinced Tran they didn't need to get the title notarized, since the car came from a dealer in South Carolina.
"Then I realized later on that the seller's name is nowhere on the paperwork," Tran recalled.
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Not only that, Tran said he looked closer at the Carfax history. Something was off. According to Carfax, it was the mileage in the little window in the middle of the speedometer.
"This car has about 200,000 miles on it, not what the speedometer said," Tran explained. "The speedometer said 132, so they dialed it like one-third down and that's when my world shattered because that was all of our budget."
Patrick Olson from Carfax said more and more scammers are exploiting the demand for used cars by rolling back the mileage with a device that costs a few hundred dollars. He explained that scammers can get anywhere up to $4,000 more out of a used car if they roll back the miles before selling it.
Olson said North Carolina is one of the states hit especially hard by this kind of scam.
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"Carfax estimates that there's about 49,000 cars across North Carolina that have a rollback odometer and about 16,000, those in the greater Charlotte area," he added.
Things got even worse for Tran, who said the van broke down not long after he bought it. Tran contacted the seller, who told him he'd reimburse the $900 worth of repairs it needed. Tran's still waiting on that money.
"The situation has been pretty stressful, pretty gloomy," he said.
Olson said there's no grace period for buying cars in North Carolina, meaning you can't give it back if something isn't right. But he said if you feel you are a victim of a scam or fraud, file a complaint with the North Carolina Attorney General's Office.
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