What is Odometer Fraud?
That grueling experience of shopping for a vehicle has finally come to an end. After visiting your fifth used car lot, you stumble across the perfect vehicle. It’s a late model car that is simply beautiful – fresh paint, finely detailed and just right for you. More importantly, it has low mileage, making it an absolute steal for the suggested price. In truth, what began as dream vehicle just may turn out to be your worst nightmare. The money you worked so hard to save could have been used to fund odometer fraud.
It is illegal to tamper with an odometer to change its reading: usually to reduce the number of miles on the car. Unscrupulous dealers have been known to “rollback” an odometer to make a used car more attractive to a buyer. Buying a VIN Search can protect you from odometer fraud. With the data in-hand, it’s obvious if the mileage suddenly goes down between registrations or annual emissions tests. You can also protect yourself from odometer fraud by having a mechanic inspect the car: they will get a sense of how much wear-and-tear there is on the vehicle, which is more important than raw miles in determining the car’s value.
