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September 27, 2002
If it seems too good to be true....
In addition to checking out if a used car is OK mechanically,
you need to make sure that it hasn't been stolen.
KYLE BERGER REPORTER
Searching for a good used car can be a daunting task. Like searching
for any major purchase, there are a lot of things to consider, such
as cost, age and condition. However, while searching for a used
car myself this summer, I learned that investigating the legitimacy
of the seller is just as important as investigating the quality
of the car.
For more than a month I had been trying to find a good, clean, second
car for under $3,000 to get me to and from work. One Saturday afternoon,
as I glanced through the Vancouver Sun's Classifieds section,
I saw what I immediately called, "My car."
It was a 1993 Cavalier RS with a V6 engine and only 150,000 kilometres.
According to the owner (I'll call him George for the sake of this
story), it was in great condition inside and out. The problem was,
I lived in Richmond, George worked in Coquitlam and the car was
parked at his East Vancouver apartment. But he was willing to leave
work to meet at the car if I was serious about making the purchase
that day.
So my friend Josh and I went to East Vancouver to make what I'd
hoped would be my final journey in the search for a new used car.
(I had already checked out 15 cars by that point and was hoping
to end my search that day.)
Upon arrival, I took a good look at the car, inside and out, which
prompted a few questions that I asked George to answer:
Question 1: Why were there no licence plates on the car?
Answer: He bought the car for his wife and she didn't like it, so
he hadn't yet registered it with the Insurance Corporation of British
Columbia (ICBC).
Question 2: Why was the stereo face plate missing?
Answer: The previous owners lost it.
The answers seemed a little unusual. But hey, it was a great car
for $2,500 and I wanted to believe him.
I decided I was serious about the car so, as I always had done when
looking at a used car, I picked up my cellphone and called my friend
Temma, who was an Autoplan agent for Coast Capital Savings in Richmond.
That's when George's otherwise helpful attitude took a strange turn.
Before I could read the vehicle identification number (VIN) under
the front windshield to Temma, George insisted on moving the car
back into his private garage, offering instead to provide me with
an Air Care form that had the VIN on it. I read Temma the number
from the form. But, since he had yet to take the car to ICBC, George's
name was not on the registration information. He told me what he
thought was the name of the people from whom he bought the car but
the car wasn't registered in that name either.
Suddenly George insisted he had to get back to his Coquitlam office.
He told me to think about it overnight and call him the next day,
so I left.
I wondered what was stopping him from trying to sell it to me that
day. Temma advised me that I should just make sure George would
be willing to go to ICBC to exchange the transfer papers with me
because ICBC wouldn't let the transaction take place if it wasn't
a clean sale.
Not wanting to wait any longer to take advantage of the great deal,
two hours later I decided to call George to set up a time to meet
the next day and complete the deal.
I told him I was very interested in buying the car and that I wanted
to set up a time when we could meet the following day. To my dismay,
he told me the car had just been sold.
Frustrated and surprised at the turn of events, I wondered how he
could have possibly sold the car in the two hours since we had met,
given that he was supposedly on his way back to Coquitlam.
I was now certain that he was trying to sell the car illegally and,
since it was clear that I was doing all my car-buying homework rather
than just handing him a $2,500 cheque and walking away, he wanted
me to think the car was sold so I'd forget about him.
To confirm my instincts, I had my sister-in-law call George later
on that evening as if she had just noticed the same ad for the car
in the paper.
George told her that, if she was "really serious about purchasing
the car," he could meet her that day. George was apparently
still looking for someone willing to take the car as it was, with
no questions asked; someone who would hand him a cheque and take
the fake transfer forms to ICBC, only to discover that the car was
stolen and their cheque had already been cashed.
Luckily, I was not that someone.
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