Junk Vehicle Titles

Apparently the US is experiencing fraud in in the scrap car and junk vehicle market. When auto insurance companies “total” damaged vehicles the vehicle’s title status becomes classified as salvage. Many of these cars, which are now a scrap car or junk vehicle are being cosmetically repaired and transferred into other states in order to obtain a standard title so the vehicle can be sold for considerably more value.

In a report by Kelsey Mays on cars.com posted in September 2014 entitled ‘Storm Surge: Beware of Title-Washed Cars’, the scam is explained. “Shopping for a used car in Mississippi? Beware of title washing. It has the highest density of title-washed cars in the country, with 1 in every 44 used cars bearing a washed title. That is well above the national average of 1 in 324 used cars. New Jersey has the second-highest rate: 1 in 87 cars. Nearly a decade ago, Hurricanes Katrina & Rita left 600,000 flood-damaged cars across the Gulf States. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy reportedly left more than 200,000 storm-damaged cars in New Jersey & New York. Salvage titles, or titles for cars that were retitled after they were written off as total losses by insurance companies, proliferated after all 3 storms. Title washing also surged, where sellers alter vehicle titles to hide their salvage status & sell the cars as regular used vehicles. To do this, sellers often send those cars through states with looser title laws.”

How scrap cars are cleaned

“Someone has a salvage car that they bought cheap — or stole — and now they want to sell it for a lot more, according to a National Insurance Crime Bureau spokesman Frank Scafidi. To do so, they have to create a phony title for cover. That altered title can help sell a damaged car for a lot more than it normally would. Cars that have avoided a title brand altogether — an equally dubious act known as brand avoidance, where a car should have received a salvage, flood or other— can also draw much better prices. It sometimes takes months for a car to be retitled after an accident. Everybody has their own titling laws; some states don’t even have branding laws. Someone might take the title and send it off to one up north where they don’t have branding laws.”

You can protect yourself from inadvertently purchasing a scrap car or junk vehicle and paying cash for a car that has major structural or mechanical concerns. When paying cash for a car we encourage you to consider options like CarFax or Autocheck, which tracks the history of most vehicles (including scrap cars and junk vehicles). Cash 4 Cars Akron the home of “paying cash for a car” 7 days a week throughout Summit County.