eBay audacity

[doradox]

So this guy tries to sell VIN and title and puts it out there for the world to see. And you all are worried that someone will use this very well documented event to “resurrect” a high number car as a low number car? It’s already documented that any car with this VIN is a fake. So what’s the real problem? Jail time for the seller of that low VIN beauty?

Steve

[geezer]

So this guy tries to sell VIN and title and puts it out there for the world to see. And you all are worried that someone will use this very well documented event to “resurrect” a high number car as a low number car? It’s already documented that any car with this VIN is a fake. So what’s the real problem? Jail time for the seller of that low VIN beauty?

Steve

What the number is, is not important. Documented or not this "VIN package" can be sold to anyone who is not aware that it is documented, or even if they did know. Read his posts, he is still trying to sell it here even though we all know the status and he plans to walk away with complete impunity after the sale. It is fitting the word audacity was used in the thread title. You ask what the real problem is? Guess we know what side of this issue you stand on. This has all the makings for a poll question, but no matter what the majority think, it won't change the legallity of this practice or keep these cars free of rampant misrepresentation by less than honest sellers. I'm not afraid to speak my mind, but that's all I have to say on this matter.

[doradox]

What the number is, is not important. Documented or not this "VIN package" can be sold to anyone who is not aware that it is documented, or even if they did know. Read his posts, he is still trying to sell it here even though we all know the status and he plans to walk away with complete impunity after the sale. It is fitting the word audacity was used in the thread title. You ask what the real problem is? Guess we know what side of this issue you stand on. This has all the makings for a poll question, but no matter what the majority think, it won't change the legallity of this practice or keep these cars free of rampant misrepresentation by less than honest sellers. I'm not afraid to speak my mind, but that's all I have to say on this matter.

You have no idea where I stand. If you are so worried this will fall into the wrong hands then spend the 20 bucks to BIN and destroy the darn thing. Actions speak louder than words and if this is a real problem then don't just talk about it, solve it.

Steve

[geezer]

You have no idea where I stand. If you are so worried this will fall into the wrong hands then spend the 20 bucks to BIN and destroy the darn thing. Actions speak louder than words and if this is a real problem then don't just talk about it, solve it.

Steve

I know I said that was all I had to say on this matter, but I can't walk away leaving you misunderstanding the issue. This is what he was selling at a starting price of $350.00 US.

Now it is properly documented

Edited September 16, 2008 by geezer

[doradox]

I guess I'll have to eat my words on that one. Sorry, I thought the plate he's now selling was part of the "set".

Steve

[geezer]

I guess I'll have to eat my words on that one. Sorry, I thought the plate he's now selling was part of the "set".

Steve

That's not even a plate he is now selling. Just smoke and mirrors, clouding the real issue. That plate is from a different seller and has no relevence.

[EScanlon]

You have no idea where I stand. If you are so worried this will fall into the wrong hands then spend the 20 bucks to BIN and destroy the darn thing. Actions speak louder than words and if this is a real problem then don't just talk about it, solve it.

Steve

Ahhh, an "excellent" idea.... more suited to "Dumb and Dumber".

Let's see, if we "reward" the seller by buying his plate, then tell him we're going to destroy the plate this will show him the error of his ways and encourage him to stop!!! He won't go looking for more data plates to sell because we would only BUY them all and destroy them.... thereby foiling his dastardly plan.

We could apply this to burglars too!! Just buy the wares they've stolen and destroy them! They'll soon get the idea that if we're just going to destroy what they steal, then there's no real purpose in stealing it in the first place. The money is nice, but since their real intent is to take something from someone to give it to someone else to use..... yeah, riiiiggght!!!

Hey... even prostitutes. All we would have to do is hire them for the night, each and every night and then they wouldn't be out on the streets!!!

All sorts of illegal actions could be solved this way.

Car thievery.... just pay the guy for the car and destroy the car, or go ahead and use it. You'll be "solving" that crime.

Identity theft ... (which is the crime closest to these scenarios) just let the guy use it... after all all that needs to be done is to pay for what they charge up.

So, Steve, where do you want the bills sent or do you want to pay up front?

Sean, you can obfuscate it any way you want but the bottom line is simple, if someone had bid (or DOES bid) for the plate, are you stating flat out that you would NOT go through with the sale?

Nothing you've said yet, points to that answer. It would appear that if you DO receive an offer to buy you just might go ahead and sell the data plates involved.

So while you may say that you're just being an "agent provocateur", it seems you're "complaining a wee bit too much" for being as "innocent" as you claim.

2¢

E

[doradox]

Ahhh, an "excellent" idea.... more suited to "Dumb and Dumber".

Let's see, if we "reward" the seller by buying his plate, then tell him we're going to destroy the plate this will show him the error of his ways and encourage him to stop!!! He won't go looking for more data plates to sell because we would only BUY them all and destroy them.... thereby foiling his dastardly plan.

We could apply this to burglars too!! Just buy the wares they've stolen and destroy them! They'll soon get the idea that if we're just going to destroy what they steal, then there's no real purpose in stealing it in the first place. The money is nice, but since their real intent is to take something from someone to give it to someone else to use..... yeah, riiiiggght!!!

Hey... even prostitutes. All we would have to do is hire them for the night, each and every night and then they wouldn't be out on the streets!!!

All sorts of illegal actions could be solved this way.

Car thievery.... just pay the guy for the car and destroy the car, or go ahead and use it. You'll be "solving" that crime.

Identity theft ... (which is the crime closest to these scenarios) just let the guy use it... after all all that needs to be done is to pay for what they charge up.

So, Steve, where do you want the bills sent or do you want to pay up front?

E

WOW! OMGWTFBBQ

I considered the "problem" to be that the eventual buyer of the fake car would be duped and could be out thousands. The solution was to destroy the plate (wrong one I guess) for 20 bucks. I'm not interested in trying to "punish" the seller of the VIN package because the reality is I couldn't even if I tried. ( your examples seem to miss that point) The only way to protect the future buyer is to make a deal with the devil. And why would I tell him I destroyed the plate? That's kind of a, I'll call it odd, assumption on your part.

If you had no other the choices between paying protection money or having your family killed would you not "reward" the thugs. If you had other choices then maybe you wouldn't, but Sean is way out of our reach as would be the thugs in my hypothetical situation. So would you stand up and watch your family die?

Steve

[EScanlon]

Steve;

Your viewpoint misses the point that without someone BUYING the VIN plates in the first place, then there is no "profit" in selling them. No need to punish, just don't reward.

You espoused buying the plates to "prevent" their misuse... but that would just encourage the sale of the VIN plates in the first place. Instead of this kind of sale NOT happening, now it would become common.

Unless you bought each and every VIN plate offered to the general market you would not prevent their falling into nefarious hands.

Recently in California, some cars were crushed because they were found to have stolen car parts installed. The premise is that if the buyers of stolen parts have more to loose than to gain from that acquisition they'll not buy the parts. That is NOT what you are proposing.

Whether or not you advise the seller of your intentions with the VIN plate is irrelevant, you will have promoted the sales of those types of items.... hence multiplying the possibility for misuse.

Allowing thugs to intimidate while you keep quiet is exactly what they want. It is the notoriety and glare of the spotlight they shun. If you scream loudly enough, you'll atract attention and hopefully there will be someone to step in and assist. If you don't wish to scream, you can always move away.

Yes, discretion is the better part of valor, but this isn't about a local "protection" or "damage insurance" scheme, it's about not allowing people to sell VIN plates AND firewall stampings for vehicles in which we have an interest in. All that would result in is that in the future each and every sale for one of our cars would have to have some form of "title search" to verify the VIN data.

Your "solution" is to give in to the "inevitability" of the action. Didn't someone say that in order for "evil" to triumph all that is required is for good men to do nothing?

FWIW

E

PS: For those that wonder what the "OMGWTFBBQ" stands for:

From: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=omgwtfbbq

OMGWTFBBQ

A meaningless acronym which most often stands for "Oh My God What The F*ck Barbeque." It most likely originated on Something Awful (somethingawful.com). It can be interpreted simply as gibberish, or used when one wants to emphasize one's own incoherence, lack of understanding, or to mock others.

[doradox]

Steve;

Your viewpoint misses the point that without someone BUYING the VIN plates in the first place, then there is no "profit" in selling them. No need to punish, just don't reward.

You espoused buying the plates to "prevent" their misuse... but that would just encourage the sale of the VIN plates in the first place. Instead of this kind of sale NOT happening, now it would become common.

Unless you bought each and every VIN plate offered to the general market you would not prevent their falling into nefarious hands.

Recently in California, some cars were crushed because they were found to have stolen car parts installed. The premise is that if the buyers of stolen parts have more to loose than to gain from that acquisition they'll not buy the parts. That is NOT what you are proposing.

Whether or not you advise the seller of your intentions with the VIN plate is irrelevant, you will have promoted the sales of those types of items.... hence multiplying the possibility for misuse.

Allowing thugs to intimidate while you keep quiet is exactly what they want. It is the notoriety and glare of the spotlight they shun. If you scream loudly enough, you'll atract attention and hopefully there will be someone to step in and assist. If you don't wish to scream, you can always move away.

Yes, discretion is the better part of valor, but this isn't about a local "protection" or "damage insurance" scheme, it's about not allowing people to sell VIN plates AND firewall stampings for vehicles in which we have an interest in. All that would result in is that in the future each and every sale for one of our cars would have to have some form of "title search" to verify the VIN data.

Your "solution" is to give in to the "inevitability" of the action. Didn't someone say that in order for "evil" to triumph all that is required is for good men to do nothing?

FWIW

E

PS: For those that wonder what the "OMGWTFBBQ" stands for:

From: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=omgwtfbbq

There is a limited supply of the item in question. There will always be a demand for it. Purchasing and destroying them can be a solution. If there was an unlimited supply of the thing, as in the hookers you mentioned, this would be a useless venture. There were a lot of people raising a ruckus possibly creating an even larger market for what he sells. There's no bad publicity in this case. He's not ashamed. He'll sell now off the radar and someone will get suckered.

Someone did say that "in order for "evil" to triumph all that is required is for good men to do nothing". If one good man had stepped up and purchased the real VIN package and destroyed it there would be one less person duped later by a faked low number car. I am, of course, assuming the real evil to be the one who uses the VIN pack to dupe. One less of the limited number of fake VIN packages to turn up later. Talking and reporting this guy to Ebay ain't exactly stepping up if you want to invoke that quote.

Oh, and I personally prefer these definitions of OMGWTFBBQ

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/OMGWTFBBQ

[Six_Shooter]

Again, if the VIN number were higher, say 152391, would there be such a concern?

What about this scenario:

A person buys a low VIN S30 (complete car), that is beyond repair, that same person buys a higher VIN S30, swaps the vins. The donor car came from eBay.

What's the difference? a few thousand dollars in shipping charges.

[Poindexter]

As I posted before- "quack, quack, waddle, paddle"---ergo it's a duck! Every fact points to the providing of items to either illegally change the identity of a car, or to circumvent various statutes. I wouldn't care if it's the VIN from #0029 or #151,029- wrong is wrong, no need to make it more complicated that that. Besides, VIN versus value is another discussion specifically being waged in another thread.

In many states of this country- and I haven't researched exactly how many- this sale is prima facie illegal in and of itself, a "kit" for circumventing the motor vehicle laws. Quack. There must be other legal methods of bringing an undocumented car back from the "dead". I did it, at great expenditure of time and effort- from NY state yet, with an absolutely stifling bureaucracy- so that argument has been squelched.

There need not be any mental gymnastics to imagine this potentially ending up badly for someone. These items almost certainly would have been used for some improper- or let's more directly say - illegal purpose. That's not stretching it too far.

An artistic wall collage would be nice, but not for $350. I would even like having an art piece with the metal bits- but the paper title pushes it over the edge for me. But even without the title, are there not methods of recreating a title, through rubbings and paperwork? I am not a "tattle-tale" but I have made sure that CarFax has been notified, and that inquiries have been sent out to the FBI and Interpol through various contacts in law enforcement. To a person, they have wholeheartedly agreed with me. These are very complex times, and God knows how these items might have been abused, or by whom later down the line.

Perhaps this may be considered by some as excessive. Indeed I feel that to NOT do anything means tacit complicity in this distasteful "scheme", IMHO. I do not seek that somebody be clapped in irons, or put into a dark, dank hole beneath the Bastille, or even punished, but simply that NOBODY in the future in this small world of ours- and specifically the Z Car Community- to which many of us feel attached by means of our deeply-held feelings and appreciation of these wonderful cars, suffer the loss and anguish associated with buying something that ISN'T what they had hoped and paid for.

TETS. The line to flame me begins on the left. I can handle it. And excuse my windbaggedness, I just type fast.

Edited September 17, 2008 by Poindexter