ATLANTA — A year after a metro Atlanta man bought a car from Carvana, law enforcement showed up at his door to repossess it. It was a stolen vehicle.
“Police came out and they took my truck,” Anthony Williams told Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray.
Williams bought the Ram1500 big horn truck from Carvana on Aug. 20, 2022. On Aug. 24 of this year, he was first informed the truck was stolen goods.
“I had a Carfax on the vehicle. It went through titling. I had my tag,” Williams said.
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The Georgia Department of Revenue says in this case there was no way for the tag office to spot the fraud.
Thieves used a real VIN and a real title number that belonged to another vehicle and forged documents.
According to the investigative report, there were discrepancies including the font and wording used.
When police and Williams looked closer at his truck, they noticed there were two different VINs on the vehicle. A counterfeit VIN had been placed on the dash, but the real VIN was under the hood.
Channel 2 Investigates told you back in May how police took Demetrius Howard’s Audi. He had purchased it months earlier from a Covington car dealer. Authorities eventually learned it was reported stolen out of Ohio months before that.
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“Honestly, I got scared when he said that because then it was like, does he think I stole it?,” Howard told Gray in May.
If you look at the Carfax report for Williams’ truck, there was only one thing that investigators say was off.
The same day the truck was offered for sale in Florida by Carvana, it is also reported to have had an oil change in Michigan. The mileage was different in both entries.
Williams turned to Channel 2 Action News after spending more than a month trying to get his money back from Carvana and the finance company.
“The neighbors are looking at me like, okay, what’s going on over there? Did he get his vehicle repossessed? Is he doing some illegal activity? So, it was it was pretty horrible for me,” Williams said.
Gray reached out to Carvana who has agreed to pay all of Williams’ money back.
Carvana said in a statement: “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.”
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