Someone sold me a stolen car yesterday.legally can I get my $ back?

Can I get my money back if they lie to the police and tell them… "we bought it stolen ourselves and didn't know."

Yesterday I bought a car from someone who had an ad on Craigslist. Didn't notice but the person had swapped out the VIN # plate next to the windshield and falsified the title.

Well the car was reported stolen I found out when I called the police to ask about the car's history when I noticed the title looked strange and some of the VIN # looked tampered with.

I have the person's phone number and where one of them work after looking them up through an Iphone that pulled up one of their online facebook. They were selling it "as a car they had bought but didn't need after all".

If he tells the cops, "I didn't know it was stolen when I sold it to this guy" is there any way for me to get my $ back from him?

Someone is going to jail

It's illegal to sell a stolen car whether or not you know it's stolen. The sale is invalid and your money should be refunded.

If not, you can take the seller to small claims court, and you will have no trouble winning. If they really didn't know the car was stolen when they bought it, they have the same recourse from whoever they bought it from.

Unfortunately, once you win in small claims court, it's not always that easy to collect. Your local small claims court should have a document on their website about how to collect money once you've won a judgement.

So, if you did a thorough inspection of the vehicle and noticed that the VIN plate looked "tampered with" then why did you give the people money to begin with?

NO. The cops are NOT going to give your money back.

You get the car back if it still runs, hope your insurence covers this

Stolen car… This will be a hard lesson for you. At least you know what to look for next time but you can kiss your money goodbye lol.

It's not only illegal to sell a stolen car, it's illegal to buy and possess one as well. Most likely you will lose the car and your money. You are going to have to sue the seller to get your money back.

When you buy stolen items (whether you knew it or not) there's no law that says you have to get your money back. But you could try to sue him for it if he won't give it back.

Unfortunately, he's an experienced crook and ready for ppL to move against him like you and the cops.

his phone and website won't matter much w/o their valid residence address.

w/o that, it's hard or impossible for the state to subpoena the seller to appear in court to answer your suit.

You may have one of the perp's work address, but if that's not the seller, it won't help much.

Them telling the cops they dint kno won't cut much ice.

But why would you call the cops to check the car's history?

If you can convince the cops the seller knew, he will be arrested and you might get payment back via the courts.(over time)

You can also sue the seller. But good luck collecting.

You should let the cops figure out who and how the car was stolen, and maybe make arrests. Unless the seller willingly offers you your money back, I doubt you'll ever see it again. From a legal standpoint, you are guilty of receiving stolen property -- and the police might want to make sure this wasn't some kind of an arrangement between you and the people who stole the car.

If the car was reported stolen and written off by an insurance company, they will want it back. If it was stolen recently (before insurance has been paid), it will go back to the owner.

So, there's a pretty good chance that you'll end up without a car and without the money you paid.