Back in Dec 2012 I set about replacing the Toyota 4 Runner my daughter wrecked when she was T-boned (those who have been on the forum may remember the thread about the wreck), struck at 45 mpg into the driver side door and while the car was almost folded in half she walked away without a scratch. It was a 07 Limited and I was so impressed with the way the car handled the wreck I wanted to replace with another just like it.
My search took me beyond my home market and I happened to find a 08 just like I wanted on the internet located in Raynham Mass at Mastria Subaru. Brother Fil from the G8 lives close by so he agreed to go take a look for me and give it a test drive. It checked out in Fil’s opinion so we negotiated a fair deal and bought the car.
Fast forward to November 2014 when I take the car to a local Toyota dealer to get a key fab (which we never had) and they call me to the service department to tell me the VIN is not in the Toyota system! We go out to the car to recheck and make sure they have the correct # off the dash, which they did and start looking at the VIN stickers on body panels. We noticed the VIN sticker on the passenger door is peeled up on one corner, I peel it off and behold there is another VIN under it! We find a similar situation on the front quarter panel; pull it off and same deal! So we go inside, run the VIN we find on the original stickers and it is legitimate but no longer valid as it was listed as a salvage title in 2011 and removed from the grid. Toyota cannot touch it now so I go home and call the sales manager at Mastria Subaru whom I dealt with directly on the purchase. I basically blow’s me off, denies any responsibility and tells me to call the State Police which I proceeded to do.
I call an attorney friend of mine that owns a used car dealership and we meet with the VA. State Police that inspect the car and set up a follow up meeting with someone from the National Insurance Crime Bureau. During the next meeting the NICB agent finds the VIN stamp on the frame and accesses the cars computer and confirms the second VIN we found is correct to the car, that the car was stolen in 2011, is in fact a 2006 NOT A 2008 AS SOLD, and Geico has an outstanding salvage title on the car. It was immediately impounded, gone, no longer mine!
On Dec 3rd I get my attorney to send a demand letter to Rick Mastria requesting the complete refund for the price paid for the car, transport fees, tax & titling fees, attorney fees and cost for new tires I spent about 4 months earlier. At first they did not respond to the letter within the requested time and ignored my attempts to reach Mr. Mastria directly. At this point I decided to handle this directly without my attorney to reduce any future fees, and I felt quite capable of dealing with this myself. It should be noted that Rick Mastria owns 6 major branded dealerships and is a second generation dealer and holds himself out on his website as being accessible, giving his direct phone number and email. Nothing further from the truth in my experience, he would never come to the phone or respond to my emails, instead he turned me over to his COO. In my opinion he is a coward, which I would say to his face if he were in front of me or had the balls to take my call.
They ended up turning this over to their insurance agent and then came back to me with a low ball offer which was completely unacceptable, one thing they wanted was a deduction for mileage used at .18/mile which I argued was not valid as they sold me a car a 2 years older than advertised (body style was the same in 06-08) and I actually prepaid any depreciation in overpaying for the car. I also argued for the other fees requested.
At the end of the day I settled in early Feb for the cost of the car and transportation fee, less mileage, they refused to pay tax and titling, attorneys fee, or for the tires. To get more would have required a law suit which would have taken who knows how long and lots of attorney fees. Had I lived in the Boston area and could have visited him personally I am sure I could have gotten more. Every dealer I spoke to in my market about this told me they would have given me all my money back if it happened to them.
Lesson learned. Just so you know I saw a car-fax which was clean and the car titled in VA when I titled it, as it had in Mass and PA after it had been put back on the market as a clean car. The counterfeit VIN had been plugged into the national main database for VIN’s. The NICB agent said it looked like the work of a very large car theft ring working the NY area in 2010-2011 that was busted up by the Feds.
The only way I could have known or found out was to have bought the car from a Toyota dealer, or taken the VIN to a Toyota dealer to run, who would have been able to access Toyota’s database and verify the VIN. I ended up losing a few thousand dollars but thankfully I bought from a Dealership and not an individual or fly by night used car dealer, then I would have been out the lot.
So if you ever buy a car from a dealer not the brand of the car itself, have a branded dealer run the VIN, it’s the only way to know as dealers cannot access others brands databases.
I am not finished with him yet, while I agreed to the settlement as final monetarily he failed to gag me so I will spread this story wherever I can. There is also a local Big 3 National TV affiliate in his market that is interested in the story which I am going to pursue. Bad work spreads quickly and if I can stop the sale of a few cars to his dealership it more than makes up for my loss.
Pass Door Vin Sticker
Driver Front Qt Panel Vin Sticker
Impound, bye-bye!
