10 Signs You're About To Buy A Stolen Car

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First and foremost, locate the VIN number on any car you're trying to buy. Usually it's on the driver's side at the base of the windshield and dashboard or on the inside of the door. There are sites like Carfax (you know, the one with that sneaky Car Fox?) and the National Insurance Crime Bureau that let you check the history report of a vehicle to see if it's been reported as salvaged or stolen. But beware, sometimes thieves will even switch out the VIN from a similar vehicle. A number that looks like it's been tampered with or scratched is the biggest red flag you can find.

Chances are, if you're paying in cash, you might not even get things like a receipt, bank documentation, or even a title. Obviously, that's not good. This means you have no way to prove the car belongs to you, and if you try to be the good guy and turn it in, Johnny Law may have to put the cuffs on you. Always be sure to get some sort of paperwork that legally binds the vehicle to you and can be traced back to who you bought it from.

So you've managed to get paperwork for your vehicle, but it appears to be printed on the back of a promo flyer for Chinese take-out. Uh-oh. Examine your title carefully. Check for any discrepancies, including the wrong VIN number or misspellings, which occur often in faked paperwork. If you suspect the bank statements or anything you've looked at is possibly forged, reconsider pulling the trigger and sort that stuff out.

Does the seller not have a fixed address? Is he or she constantly changing his or her phone number between correspondence? Are your emails re-routing to some sort of foreign server? Have they asked if you know a pretty good drug dealer, or if you're a cop? Yeah, you should probably stop replying to them.

Craiglist is cool because of it's laissez-faire environment and the fact that it's pretty much a one-stop shop for apartments, free stuff, and hookers. It's definitely not the safest place to buy a car, though. You might luck out and meet a non-murderer who genuinely wants to get rid of a decent vehicle, but more often than not, you're being fed to wolves who need to make a quick buck and don't know shit about what they're selling. It helps to have a reliable mechanic to check things out, or in this case, a detective buddy who'll quickly pick up on any shady behavior.

Check to see the license plates are up to snuff. Are they fully reflective? Do they even offer that design in that state? Are they expired? Are they made of a sheet of printer paper or cardboard? It never hurts to do a thorough background check, even if it's coming from a corner dealership.

If a deal seems pretty unreal, it probably is. Sure, you've heard the urban legend about bitter divorceés trying to get back at their exes, but it's much  more likely that a car thief is trying to unload some hot merchandise for cheap. Your car is something that should never be an impulse buy, so don't get bug eyes for the first car you see. 

Oof, these are extremely suspect, not to mention extremely gross and unsanitary. In addition to being a sign of a previous struggle (or an extremely untimely accident) taking place in the vehicle, that shit is damn near impossible to get out. You don't want to reupholster your entire car right after buying it, do you?

You're inspecting the car and all of a sudden — oh shit, Tyrone Biggums' crack pipe pops out! Hmmm, that's not suspect at all. Even if the car isn't stolen, it's a definite deal-breaker that there's been some obvious ratchet shit going on. You don't want to get pulled over two months later only to have the cops find a kilo of coke stashed in between the door panel. 

Just pretend you didn't see anything, wipe your prints off the deck lid, and walk away... even if it is Kanye West.