Vengeful Scam On Legit Repo Man or Crooked Repo Man Selling Stolen Car? You Decide!

by Murilee Martin

Published: April 11th, 2013

vengeful scam on legit repo man or crooked repo man selling stolen car you decide

The world of towed-away cars can be a harsh one, as our very own Steven Lang often points out. Today I heard the latest in a long series of tales from the often-penumbral world of towing and repossessions, a Craigslist ad that purports to be selling a mistakenly-repoed Crown Vic. A phony ad meant to drag a clean business and its owner into a world of pain— an all-too-common occurrence in the maddening world of Craigslist cars-for-sale listings— or something that will soon have the constabulary asking a lot of pointed questions in a certain Maryland tow yard’s office?

24 Hours of LeMons Legend Speedycop, who happens to have a day job as a Washington DC police officer (and never looks for potential race cars while he’s on duty), found a too-good-to-be-true ad for a 1998 Ford Crown Victoria with free bonus ’99 Crown Victoria as part of the deal.

Hmmm… something about this doesn’t smell quite right. Let’s read the text of the ad (redacted in case this is a burn job by a vengeful ex-girlfriend and/or business rival):

“1 1998 crown Vic with title n runs great and. 1999 crown Vic with no title. The second was repossessed my my company ■■■■■, but was the wrong repoed and we never took back. Car runs great n in mint condition. Can get up a title by swapping vins easily. 100.00 for both. I own ■■■■■ REPOSSESSION COMPANY. IF WANT TO BUY ASAP CALL 410 ■■ ■■■■, my name is ■■■■■. Best time to reach me is at night or here’s my address to stop by n look at em. ■■■■■ ■■■■■ rd. fallston md. Both must go ASAP. Feel free to stop by anytime at my residence. TY. Ill be home all night at furnace rd or my business at ■■■■■ ■■■■■ rd. Nottingham md. Please rush”

So, Speedycop has informed his law-enforcement colleagues in the Baltimore area about this ad, and let’s just say that they’re verrrrrry interested. Mistakenly-repoed car being offered with the suggestion of a VIN swap, or reprehensible burning-bag-o-dog-poop-on-the-porch prank? The “I’ll be home all night” and ridiculously low selling price suggests the latter, but who can say? We’ll let you know what happened, once the dust settles.

#Craigslist #Crime&Punishment #FordCrownVictoria #FoundOnCraigslist #Panther #PantherLove #TowTruck #Towing

Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

More by Murilee Martin

Comments

Join the conversation

3 of 13 comments

Redav on Apr 12, 2013

On a totally unrelated note, the concept of buy one, get one free raises an interesting question about LeMons. A few years ago, Hyundai had a buy a car, get an Accent for $1. Could someone enter that brand new Accent in LeMons because it very officially cost (and thus is worth?) less than $500?

Like Reply
- Chuckrs on May 01, 2013
  
  Even if you got it by the judges, you'd still lose to the pop-up camper.
  
  Like
Littlecarrot on Apr 12, 2013

Thanks for the info. Makes sense now. I'm tired of seeing these ads on Craigslist. i'm also tired of dealers not listing their price or mileage.

Like Reply

Recent Comments

JMII I did them on my C7 because somehow GM managed to build LED markers that fail after only 6 years. These are brighter then OEM despite the smoke tint look.I got them here: https://www.corvettepartsandaccessories.com/products/c7-corvette-oracle-concept-sidemarker-set?variant=1401801736202
28-Cars-Later Why RHO? Were Gamma and Epsilon already taken?
28-Cars-Later "The VF 8 has struggled to break ground in the increasingly crowded EV market, as spotty reviews have highlighted deficiencies with its tech, ride quality, and driver assistance features. That said, the price isn’t terrible by current EV standards, starting at $47,200 with leases at $429 monthly." In a not so surprising turn of events, VinFast US has already gone bankrupt.
28-Cars-Later "Farley expressed his belief that Ford would figure things out in the next few years."Ford death watch starts now.
JMII My wife's next car will be an EV. As long as it costs under $42k that is totally within our budget. The average cost of a new ICE car is... (checks interwebs) = $47k. So EVs are already in the "affordable" range for today's new car buyers.We already have two other ICE vehicles one of which has a 6.2l V8 with a manual. This way we can have our cake and eat it too. If your a one vehicle household I can see why an EV, no matter the cost, may not work in that situation. But if you have two vehicles one can easily be an EV.My brother has an EV (Tesla Model Y) along with two ICE Porsche's (one is a dedicated track car) and his high school age daughters share an EV (Bolt). I fully assume his daughters will never drive an ICE vehicle. Just like they have never watched anything but HiDef TV, never used a land-line, nor been without an iPad. To them the concept of an ICE power vehicle is complete ridiculous - you mean you have to STOP driving to put some gas in and then PAY for it!!! Why? the car should already charged and the cost is covered by just paying the monthly electric bill.So the way I see it the EV problem will solve itself, once all the boomers die off. Myself as part of Gen X / MTV Generation will have drive a mix of EV and ICE.