scammed need help

how does the engine compartment look? Look at the wired, hoses, etc.
If the engine has 300,000 miles on it, it will show.
You can also go to toyota and ask them to check the vin number and see if any service has been
done at any dealership. And they can check for recalls.
Car fax said originally it have 39,000, then came back and said 300,000, and two accidents?
Why didn't they get that the first time? Did you check it again and that's why it was different?
You said the owner provided the car fax the first time. Check to make sure the vin in the correct
on for the car you have.
Double check the vin number. Look on the drivers door jam for the sticker. Then on the divers side
windshield, and then under the hood. All numbers should be the same. If not, you need to contact
the police.

 

i think you need advice from someone in cali, with a bit of experience and knowledge of the consumer/auto laws.
in the meantime, is there a way to contact carfax?
all the best!

 

Is it possible the seller showed you an old Carfax, perhaps taken when the vehicle DID only have 39,000 miles on it?
Do you have the Carfax the seller showed you?
I agree with ARSDogman.
You need to verify your VIN #'s. That's probably your best 1st step.
If it turns out the latest Carfax is correct unfortunately I would contact both the police and seek legal representation.
If you were sold a purposely misrepresented automobile you were the victim of a crime.

Verifying the VIN #s, on the vehicle and checking against the Carfax's is probably the most important 1st step.

Best of Luck.

I hate to hear of challenges like this happening to people.
I had some bad used car purchases when I was young, in the days before Carfax's and traceable databases.

I hope you get some good news.
At this point, I think stepping back a little a verifying or re-verifying your information is the best 1st step.

 

Yeah, it is one thing to fake the paper print out and maybe dash odometer reading... But it's hard to believe anyone can make a car with 300kmiles to look like 39kmiles without spending a lot of money. What does the registration record shows? At least in my state, you have to prove mileage on registration each year. You never said what ODO is showing. I thought Gen3 shows 300K miles doesn't it?

I am not sure what type of lemon law exists in CA to protect used car consumers, but most state have very little protection for used car deals. If you purse it, you may have to spend a lot of money on legal representation.

 

What I learned from this experience, it saddens me to say, was that Carfax is built to grease the wheels of commerce and collect fees, not so much to give buyers important information about cars.

 

While that might be true, I think you are missing the mark by not so subtly suggesting that Carfax itself is committing fraud.

I hope the OP still has the printout of the first Carfax report and a copy of any other paperwork that shows the fraudulent mileage number.

While used cars in individual sales are generally "as is", that can be negated if intentional fraud can be proven.
I suggest that he needs to consult a lawyer.

 

I have not, in any of my posts on the subject, suggested that Carfax is committing fraud.

They just clearly have put procedures in place that facilitate the collection of happy information more easily than sad, and provide sellers a 'request further research' option that is not provided to buyers.

It's rather like the eBay situation I ran into with door lock actuators, which appeared to involve known-defective or QA reject stock being sold off in large quantities by eBay sellers registering under various names.

I would never suggest that eBay itself was party to fraud. It was just that eBay's policies provide absolutely no effective way you can bring that kind of a racket to their attention. They have procedures for if a one-off transaction goes sideways and they make sure the seller refunds you. But if the seller flat-out has a pallet of bad parts and knows it, but always sends the $16 back to any buyer when caught, as far as eBay's automated report filing is concerned, there's nothing to see there.

(Obviously, the only way for sellers to work a racket like that is if the parts can be defective in nonobvious ways; when a door lock actuator is missing the internal switches, it will still make the door lock and unlock, which is probably the first thing the buyer will check. If the buyer later notices mystery behavior of the theft alarm, they might not even think to connect that with the recently replaced lock actuator.)

I would never think eBay is in actual cahoots with such sellers. What eBay is up to is running a platform that brings them zillions of dollars in commissions, and they don't face any strong incentive to improve reporting mechanisms that would help them see issues they don't see now.

 

Doesn’t car fax have a buy back guarantee?

likely need legal help to pursue it though.

 

I don't think Carfax is a perfect system.
From my perspective dealerships and sellers, can point to a seemingly clean or good Carfax report as a selling incentive, then conversely if you are trading your vehicle in, point to a blemished Carfax report, even if it's as harmless as a single fender bender, as a reason to offer you far less value for your vehicle.
But imperfect or not, I think traceable database information on vehicles HELPS the consumer much more than it hurts. I usually recommend a person pursue a Carfax before purchasing a used vehicle.

And imperfect or not, "Carfax" itself really is neither here nor there for the OP. The problem is determining whether the OP was a victim of misrepresentation of the vehicle, and that comes down to determining what information is correct.
Private Seller, you have really no idea. If they slide a piece of paper across as being a Carfax report, unless you immediately go home and request and print your own, you have no idea what you really looked at.
I don't know exactly what happened here, but the OP claims to have seen, 1 Carfax that says, 39,000 miles-No Accidents, and now obtained a Carfax that says 300,000 miles-2 accidents.
This conflict in information could EASILY have nothing to do with Carfax "the system" itself. Unscrupulous seller? Who really knows what the OP was shown originally. Like I asked, was a date on the Carfax? It could be a real Carfax report, but an old one, created back when the vehicle indeed only had 39,000 miles on it, and no accidents.
In any case, I don't think the challenge or question here is how valuable or how fallible a Carfax report may or may not be. The challenge is verification. Double check VIN's, double check database information. Toyota's records, Registration Records, and Carfax to determine the truth about the vehicles status.
I think that's where the OP is at. A debate about the value, worth, intent, of a Carfax or the Carfax system is not helpful.
Determining the reality about the vehicle and whether or not the OP is a victim of fraud IS.
And I would say, IF...big IF it is determined the OP was a victim of fraud here, you would have to say the Carfax obtained by the OP was the first tool that helped uncover that reality.

 

I hope we hear back from the OP. My guesses?

I think the AAA trip is a red-herring. From the timing the OP posted, he attempted to get insurance from AAA before registering the car with DMV. AAA responded that there was no Notice of Transfer / Release of Liability. You can't insure a car you don't officially own.

Title had 39K miles and CarFax had 39K miles. That is really odd. The mileage is recorded on the title only at the time of transfer. So how did that "check out" prior to purchase? Or was the OP looking at the title and CarFax the SELLER got when the SELLER purchased the car when it had 39k miles? Then the seller drove the car for several years and for 240k miles, crashing it twice before listing it for sale, assuming the second CarFax is accurate.

CarFax buys mileage info from DMV, insurance companies, auto repair and service shops. Where did CarFax suddenly get 300k mileage if the OP just purchased the car hadn't taken it to any of those places? Even if the OP did take it to those places, they would record the mileage from the odometer.

The OP never says that he looked at the odometer. Kinda odd he never mentioned that.

My conclusions based on the known facts:
1. OP was confused about seller's representations regarding the mileage at the time of the transaction;
or
2. Seller ran the Trip Odometer to 39K and tricked the OP into thinking that was the odometer and used his old CarFax/Title from when the seller purchased the car at 39K (or illegally set the odometer back to 39K);
or
3. Seller forged the CarFax (although that doesn't explain the title having the same mileage) or forged the date on the CarFax, passing it off as a current CarFax;
or
4. Current CarFax with 300k miles is wrong due to the OP providing an inaccurate VIN. It seems odd that the OP could mistake a car with 300k miles with a car having 39k miles. If the car has 300k miles and looked like 39k miles, I'd like the name of that detailer.

Hopefully #4 is correct as that would be a happy ending.

 

I agree with you about where the OP is at. At the same time, a digression of a post or two, into the possibility of overrelying on Carfax in general, doesn't seem to go hugely outside the range of topic drift normally seen on PriusChat. That it is "not helpful", I don't agree at all.

Carfax is not "bad". At the same time, it is a service that is objectively set up in ways that make it less of a reliable traceable database than people (including me at one point) might naïvely have assumed it is. Worth dropping a reminder of every now and again.

Back to the OP's purposes, I agree that the first order of business is getting reliable answers on what happened with the car.

 

Yeah, I'd like to hear what happened.
But it's looking like a Punxsutawney Phil post. Somebody saw their shadow and it's 6 more weeks of not hearing anything.

 

it was only today

maybe the second carfax is incorrect

incorrect mileage on title in massachusetts is a criminal action

 

It was yesterday.
And I'm impatient.

 

lately, i have nothing but time...

mine says today, must be a time zone thing

 

Sorry you're right, 2nd post was 7:08 today.
I'm blaming it on Social Isolation.