criminalized for a legal purchase

March 2, 2017 5:39 AM

An officer told her that the car had over $5,000 in unpaid parking tickets, which the dealer would have to pay off to secure title or ownership. By never forwarding her information to the DMV, the dealer saved money but also turned her into a target for cops.
posted by BekahVee (37 comments total)

FTA: Auto dealers are typically pillars of their local communities

(dissolves into hysterical laughter, followed by quiet sobbing in a fetal position)
posted by randomkeystrike at 5:43 AM on March 2, 2017 [59 favorites]

Auto dealers are typically pillars of their local communities, sources of millions of dollars in campaign donations and lobbying.

Whenever people chastise those who riot and burn down local businesses as "hurting their own cause" I think of statements like the one above.
posted by any major dude at 6:00 AM on March 2, 2017 [16 favorites]

Whenever people chastise those who riot and burn down local businesses as "hurting their own cause" I think of statements like the one above.

I've been lucky and privileged enough to never have to deal with this kind of incredible, awful bullshit, but just reading about it makes me think, "Maybe if we burned down a few of these fuckers' car lots--no injuries, mind you, just burned their lot and all the cars in it to the ground--maybe this is a problem that could be solved." Or, I guess, pass some actual laws to ban this kind of shit, but good luck with that.
posted by dellsolace at 6:21 AM on March 2, 2017 [7 favorites]

Thanks for this. I'm highlighting the link at the end to the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, which seems like a good organization to support:

"EHRP was founded by renowned author Barbara Ehrenreich with one main purpose: support immersive reporting on the working poor, in the manner of Ehrenreich's own classic book "Nickel and Dimed." It is directed by Alissa Quart, author of a companion work of socially-oriented non-fiction, "Branded.""
posted by jetsetsc at 6:46 AM on March 2, 2017 [14 favorites]

If only Big Government would get out of the way and let the free market sort this out.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:12 AM on March 2, 2017 [5 favorites]

I don't understand what happened. The dealer sold a car to which it had as yet no legal title? But that's not illegal? They asked for the car back but said they wouldn't return the money she had already paid? And that's not illegal either?

And in America it's normal to hand over the money and drive the car away without actually transferring ownership? I mean, what?
posted by Segundus at 7:26 AM on March 2, 2017 [20 favorites]

> when you get pulled over, the car is searched

Well... that part is generally up to you.

This is your friendly regular reminder:

1) Know your rights. Go watch "Busted" if you haven't done so recently.

2) Do not consent to any searches.

3) Remember that police are allowed to lie to you. Still do not consent to any searches.

3a) Yes, even the cop who's being oh so nice and is really trying to "just help you out". Yes, he is also allowed to lie to you.

4) Shut the hell up. Answer questions with the minimum response necessary. Do not answer more than you are asked. When in doubt, shut the hell up. The policeman is not your friend.

5) If they have to ask [to search you/the car/your bags] then they likely don't have probable cause. When they do, or if they do have a warrant, they won't be asking for permission.
posted by -1 at 7:32 AM on March 2, 2017 [10 favorites]

Glad to see America is still on the cutting edge of finding new ways to fuck over black people.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:34 AM on March 2, 2017 [4 favorites]

I don't understand what happened. The dealer sold a car to which it had as yet no legal title? But that's not illegal?

Eh... grey area, I think. If they didn't physically have the title but had legal ownership, yes. I've actually bought cars in that situation. But if they didn't have legal ownership or authorization to sell on someone's behalf? I'd wager they were in the wrong.

They asked for the car back but said they wouldn't return the money she had already paid? And that's not illegal either?

Depends on what she signed and what the money was for. If the money was payment for the car and she hadn't agreed to forfeit it if the deal fell through, then the dealership is in the wrong, yes. But if the money was for something like, say, a deposit to "hold" the car prior to a test drive then no, they might not have to return it.

And in America it's normal to hand over the money and drive the car away without actually transferring ownership? I mean, what?

Well, it depends on what you mean by transfer ownership. Very often when you buy a car you're driving off before it's legally yours. One of the things you sign in the F&I office is usually a power of attorney form which allows the dealer to fill out the title app. etc. on your behalf. But if you buy the car at, say, 5PM on a Saturday, yeah, you're gonna be riding around for a couple days in a car that the DMV doesn't think is yours. (That's why you usually keep a copy of the bill of sale, etc. in the car during that time.)

There's also the notion of spot delivery. The way it works is this: you want to buy a car. But your bank is closed. You're preapproved, but you can't get the funds transferred to the dealer until the bank opens the next day. So the dealer offers you a form to sign that basically states "we're letting you drive off in the car now, but the deal isn't technically done until the bank pays us. If they don't, you owe us the money for the car, or you can return the car and 'unwind' the deal, less the cost of any damage or wear to the car".

Now where this gets fun is that a lot of people don't know what "spot delivery" is, don't really read the form, and then get all freaked out that "I bought the car but now I have to give it back!!" Well... no, you didn't technically buy the car yet. (This comes up all the time on personal finance forums.)

Now that's not what's happening here, it seems, but yeah, it is in fact pretty common to drive away before you technically "own" the car. If you've bought a car on a weekend, you've done just that.
posted by -1 at 7:41 AM on March 2, 2017 [6 favorites]

That's why you usually keep a copy of the bill of sale

She was doing this, as mentioned several times in TFA.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:46 AM on March 2, 2017 [5 favorites]

3) Remember that police are allowed to lie to you. Still do not consent to any searches.

Also remember that doing this might result in the police beating the shit out of you. Or, with lower probability, just straight-up murdering you.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:52 AM on March 2, 2017 [37 favorites]

Maybe it's just a really complicate process, but also it seems like there's some not-rtfa going on in here. not calling anyone out in specific, but maybe this will help:

There are, weirdly, varying levels of ownership of a vehicle. as it states in the article "While some states, like Virginia, require that dealers issue certificates transferring title before cars leave the lots, many others don't."

So, it depends on the state. A lot of dealerships charge "admin fees" of like several hundred dollars, and for that feel they will do all the DMV paperwork for you (title transfer, registration, plates). I guess in some places this can be done without the new buyer present.
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:56 AM on March 2, 2017

This article, and a book called "Chain of Title," about the mortgage industry, has really opened my eyes up to the fact that large institutions are able to sell you anything, even if they don't own it and can't prove they own it, and it's still your problem if anything goes wrong with it, and they can keep your money for selling it to you.

(And yes, that shows how naive I am.)
posted by xingcat at 7:58 AM on March 2, 2017 [10 favorites]

Wow. I had no idea that there were states that let dealers just hand you a car and take your money and not give you a title before you leave that lot. That's crazypants.

Virginia has never really struck me as being on the cutting edge of consumer protection or anything, and it never occurred to me that other states—California, no less—would be so lax, comparatively.

(I've always thought it was a semi-shady sop to the used car dealers that Virginia makes you physically go to the fucking DMV if you buy a car from another person, in order to do the transfer paperwork—they don't actually look at the car or anything, but you have to do this in person for unspecified reasons—while if you go through a dealer you get the title printed up on-the-spot, so you save the DMV hassle. The lack of an online option for the direct-sale process has always struck me as obvious regulatory capture by the dealers, particularly given that you can now do all sorts of other stuff online. But I guess it could be a lot worse.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:07 AM on March 2, 2017 [5 favorites]

Two cars ago, I bought a used car from a dealership; the fun part for me was a full year later, when I went to the DMV to renew my license plates: turned out that the license plates the dealer himself screwed onto my car (not temporary tags, the actual metal plates) the dealership had reported stolen..... Fortunately for me, I'm a non-threatening-looking older white woman, and I drive like the proverbial old lady. I can only imagine what would have happened if I'd ever been pulled over, with those "stolen" plates on my car. As it was, I had lots of fun running back and forth between the dealer and the DMV to straighten that mess out.

Buy anything from that dealer again? Maybe take the car there for service? Oh heck no!
posted by easily confused at 8:14 AM on March 2, 2017 [4 favorites]

For those who are surprised that the dealer would let someone take the car without financing, this is not uncommon - it is part of the Yo-Yo scam. It isn't new.
posted by procrastination at 8:23 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

I like this idea that the object carries the culpability with it, and that the human just get it by contagion somehow. I guess if you buy a gun second-hand you're also on the hook for the murders committed with it in the past too, that would make perfect sense.
posted by mhoye at 8:25 AM on March 2, 2017 [4 favorites]

1) Know your rights. [etc.]

Knowing what your rights are and having them respected are two different things. If you're a person of colour, asserting your rights is a good way to end up dead. Never having to believe that the world isn't profoundly unjust is a luxury unto itself.
posted by klanawa at 8:26 AM on March 2, 2017 [14 favorites]

> > I'd have a hard time believing a place would let someone drive a car away without making sure that they would have financing for it first.
> Yo-Yo scam
This happened to me & they wouldn't take the car back. I was "forced" to still lease it with a crappy money factor. My guess is this version is more profitable: find someone with OK but not great credit, tease them with a low monthly payment (I was young), then rope them into a loan or lease that costs the consumer a lot more & gives the dealer a spiff.
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 8:29 AM on March 2, 2017

I like this idea that the object carries the culpability with it

That seemed pretty weird to me, and I find it a bit hard to believe that it really works that way—maybe CA law is designed to prevent you from transferring title when there are outstanding tickets on a car? And thus if you buy a car without a title, you're at risk of getting pulled over and due to the lack of a title you can't prove it's not your car, and thus that it's not you who accrued the tickets? But that still creates a huge risk on the part of an innocent buyer; it basically means you need to have the auto equivalent of real property title insurance. I mean, if that's the case, effectively what the state is doing is putting a lien of sorts on the car, saying it can't be sold until the tickets are paid. Which is reasonable, I guess, but only if there's some way for a buyer to know that. There's a reason why financing liens are typically either printed onto the title, or the title is physically retained by the lienholder.

Since presumably the CA DMV has all this information in its computer system, it'd be nice if they let you call some sort of automated number, maybe punch in the VIN or something, and get a thumbs-up / thumbs-down on whether or not the vehicle is free of liens and outstanding tickets and basically OK to transfer.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:38 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

I just bought a car from a big dealer chain, out of california and into washington, and we had to wait a couple of weeks because while CA will let dealers sell cars in-state like the deal described above, they won't let them be sold out-of-state unless all paperwork is in order.
posted by maxwelton at 8:40 AM on March 2, 2017

The leaders of our local Toyota chain were recently arrested for running an opiate ring.
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 8:46 AM on March 2, 2017 [4 favorites]

Since presumably the CA DMV has all this information in its computer system, it'd be nice if they let you call some sort of automated number, maybe punch in the VIN or something, and get a thumbs-up / thumbs-down on whether or not the vehicle is free of liens and outstanding tickets and basically OK to transfer.--Kadin2048

Well they do have this, though I'm not sure it gives information on liens or tickets.
posted by eye of newt at 8:55 AM on March 2, 2017

Was very pleased to find the Economic Hardship Reporting Project! Thanks for this post!
posted by WalkerWestridge at 9:37 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

Recalling the conversation we had about auto loans, with some people being 'you should only buy used cars for cash' -- note that this can be another hidden cost of buying used. There are a lot of points to it, don't get me wrong, but there are costs.
posted by tavella at 9:48 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

Had a co-worker trade in a pickup for an SUV. The pickup had a loan that the dealer was to pay off the balance as part of the trade-in. It was around $10k, iirc.

Anyways, a year or two later, he gets served papers for the unpaid balance on the truck loan. You know where this is going -- the dealer never paid off the loan and resold the truck to another poor sap. By the time people figured out what happened, the dealer had closed shop and skipped town. My co-worker had to pay off the loan for the original truck, along with his loan for the SUV.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 9:49 AM on March 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Sounds like the lady in the story bought her car from one of those "Buy Here, Pay Here" places. Typically, they will sell the car and then resell the loan.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 9:51 AM on March 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Well they do have this

The dmv.org website isn't an official government site; it's a semi-shady consolidator of information related to various states' DMV offices. (I think it's unfortunate that they exist, because it's confusing, and also unfortunate that some states persist in having their actual DMV websites in .com or .org namespace where it's nearly impossible to tell that they're really official. Thankfully California has the perfectly rational dmv.ca.gov domain, but other states are less savvy.)

Anyway, I think what they're directing you to on that page is some sort of CarFax-like commercial service, presumably searching some subset of insurance databases? It's a little unclear. I guess that's better than nothing, but since the various states' DMVs generally all have the lien information on file, it would be pretty trivial to expose that via a rate-limited phone or web interface and not make it the province of weird private-sector third parties.

But this is America, and we can't possibly let the good of the public get in the way of a few people's opportunities to make money. ಠ_ಠ
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:51 AM on March 2, 2017 [4 favorites]

I've been lucky and privileged enough to never have to deal with this kind of incredible, awful bullshit, but just reading about it makes me think, "Maybe if we burned down a few of these fuckers' car lots--no injuries, mind you, just burned their lot and all the cars in it to the ground--maybe this is a problem that could be solved.

Uh, you can go ask former CalTech PhD student/convicted terrorist William Cottrell how well burning a bunch cars solves any problems. He spent 8 years in Federal prison and got $3.5 million judgement against him.
posted by sideshow at 10:53 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

This sounds crazy to me. Doesn't the person (under their name and hopefully, DL #) rack up the tickets, not the car? It shouldn't matter what I'm driving, if I'm the one getting pulled over for the speeding ticket.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 11:01 AM on March 2, 2017

This sounds crazy to me. Doesn't the person (under their name and hopefully, DL #) rack up the tickets, not the car? It shouldn't matter what I'm driving, if I'm the one getting pulled over for the speeding ticket.

These are parking tickets. In CA at least, parking tickets always belong to the car.
posted by sideshow at 11:07 AM on March 2, 2017

Stuff like this makes me wonder if title insurance should get into the auto industry.
posted by dinty_moore at 11:18 AM on March 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

I heard a lot of bad things about this place. What none of the news coverage mentioned was that every windshield on the lot was smashed too.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 11:33 AM on March 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Is there anyone left in America who's honest? When I say anyone, I mean insurance companies, car dealers, hospitals, law firms, police departments, politicians from all layers of government, banks, big business, small business, corporate media, you name it, anyone?
posted by Beholder at 2:38 PM on March 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Sure. There are lots of people who are honest. I'd wager that the majority of people who work at those crooked banks, insurance companies, hospitals, etc. are, in their own personal dealings, actually pretty honest. Americans, just taken as a whole and painting with a very broad brush, are culturally conditioned to be pretty honest and it's actually a rare person who can straight-up lie to someone else's face for their own personal gain, and the ability to do so is frequently not seen as a positive trait.*

But put those same people in a group and then let each of them be just a little dishonest, and the organization as a whole will be shoveling babies into furnaces by the bushel-basket and calling it an "alternative green energy source" in a week.

TBH, sometimes I think that's why certain aspects of organizations exist. They're there purely because they allow the organizations to act in ways that the cultural conditioning of the underlying employees wouldn't allow them to behave just acting on their own. In some cases by allowing each employee to only do a little ethical corner-cutting, or in other cases by allowing the actual dirty work to be shifted to the minority of people who don't have a problem with it (you know, sociopaths). The market, naturally, selects for the organizational structures that do one or the other most profitably.

* I'm not implying that this is uniquely American or anything, before I get jumped on. Though in my experience there are cultures that have more of an in-group/out-group double standard when it comes to honesty, with much sharper practice allowable in business dealings with the out-group. Mainstream US culture is pretty consistent in its disapproval of that sort of thing.
posted by Kadin2048 at 3:15 PM on March 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Also remember that doing this might result in the police beating the shit out of you. Or, with lower probability, just straight-up murdering you.

I heard a story once by an NRA-dues-paying-and-proud white southern lawyer, albeit one in a public defenders office. He was stopped. He refused to consent to a search by some cop with a chip on his shoulder. The cop said he'd call for a K9 unit backup who'd sniff out the drugs he knew were in the car. The lawyer said fine. The dog found nothing and the K9 officer told the initial cop he was wasting time.

The thing is, the lawyer knew the K9 officer just as he knew many on the police. They had a good relationship. Lawyer said the initial cop simply assumed the second officer would get the dog to act appropriately suspicious and they'd get to do the search anyway, clients complained about this sot of thing all the time.
posted by mark k at 8:19 PM on March 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

We were trying to buy a used car a few years ago (we're in CA). You can't believe how many people do not have the title in hand. We viewed several cars and got down to negotiating price and then they'd say "okay you pay me today and I'll mail the title to you". What? No, we've watched enough Judge Judy to know that won't end well. It got to the point where when we'd call to make a viewing appointment the convo would go like this "do you still have the car? Good. Do you have the physical title with you? No? *click*".

Never had the parking ticket situation come up though, that's just scary. I'd imagine she needs to get a judgement releasing her from those liabilities based on the date of purchase and then go get new plates.
posted by vignettist at 12:03 AM on March 4, 2017