Sold my car to a guy who won't return my tags...what are my options?

[Jensgt]

The easiest way to tell the story is in timeline, so here goes.

Saturday May 29, 2010 - Guy comes to look at my 2003 Ford Mustang that is for sale. Price for sale was $12500, we agree on $11,500 since it needed new brakes. He said he was approved for a loan and would get a check to me ASAP.

Over the next few weeks I am in contact with him because I still have no check and I am getting offers of $12k on the car from people on the phone. I know he has gotten one loan and turned it down due to the interest rate so he is shopping banks on my time...irritating...but he acted like a nice guy...is a military cop at Ft Belvoir in VA so I decided to be nice to the guy and wait for him. Stupid...

Friday June 25 - Finally brings check...its a certified bank check so I let him take the car and the tags so he can get home with no problem and tell him to send the tags back to me when he gets it home.

Monday July 5 - I emailed him to tell him I have the title to send to him, so I need his address. He notifies me that "I am on vacation in Illinois until the 21st so it might be a minute before I send your tags back"

I replied to tell him that I could not cancel my insurance because when I do that I need to turn the tags in and I don't have the tags...so this is costing me money. He apologizes and says something about the car needing brakes to pass inspection so when he gets back and fixes the brakes he can get his tags and send mine back. I already took $1000 off the price of the car over the brakes now I have to wait until he fixes them for my tags to return? Bogus.

Sunday July 25 - He should have been back long enough to return my tags by now so I ask again...can I have my tags back. He replies asking for my address...which I have now given to him twice and also he has the title with my address on it....and says he will send them...so I send my address again.

Thursday August 5 - Emailed Wade again...I have no tags did you send them?

Friday August 6 - Wade replies "Yes I did"

Tuesday August 10 - Wrote Wade again...I have no tags. Can you please tell me what service you used to send them...USPS, UPS, Fedex...so I can look into this??

Wade replies back that night..."My wife sent them I will ask her, she has been in Germany for the past 2 weeks".

(Keep in mind 2 weeks prior to August 10th it was July 27. July 29 he asked me my address and said he would send them...so this sounds like a lie to me".)

I reply back to him..."Can you please get back to me today, because I am losing money every day paying insurance on this car I don't have...and my husband is starting to get pissed off".

3 hours later he replies...I will paste his reply below....

"Ok its like 3 am in germany so I can't get a hold of my wife right now... but I did some checking for u and it is against the law for an insurance company not to cancel ur insurance.. so let ur husband know to be mad at them not me... I work 16 hours and its at night... so I am sorry if I did not have a chance to mail it myself.... my wife had todo it for me.. so I don't know what's goig on with it... I have to much other shit going on... but I am sure its on its way.... and cancel ur insurance u don't even own the car ur insurance company is crazy to tell u that... they don't have a say in when u cancil ur insurance.... that's nuts.... but please uvderstand that as soon as it becomes a decent hour in germany I will find out... "

At this I became VERY mad. I informed him that in Maryland we have 30 days to return tags after canceling insurance on a vehicle. If I had canceled it when he took the car I would be getting fees from the MVA now!! I told him I was very nice and patient with him, agreed on his price for the car, held the car for a MONTH while he fooled around getting a loan, let him use my tags to get the car home, did not get pissed off when he went on a 3 week vacation without sending my tags back...and now I have to listen to how he has better things to worry about. F this!

So he writes back and apologizes and says he will talk to his wife and get back to me as soon as its a decent hour in Germany. He says if he finds out she did not send the tags he will overnight them on Wednesday.

Thursday August 12 PM - Me to Wade..."Any word?"

As of 3pm today August 13...No word from Wade and NO tags. My husband keeps saying write him again, and I am sick of it. I don't want to talk to him or email him any more without having some sort of legal ultimatum. What can I do at this point...can I press charges? Can I report the tags stolen and give the MVA his name and address? Can I take him to small claims court?

I don't want to get involved in anything messy...I have school starting in a week and next week I will be out of town, I really don't have time to be dealing with this but I want to be able to maybe scare him into actually sending my damn tags back!!!! PLease help!

 

[Theresagail]

Call DMV and tell them you sold the car and you no longer own it and the to report the tags as stolen as you have not gotten them back yet. Or you can go to his address and take the tags off the car yourself

 

[Jensgt]

He lives on Ft Belvoir which is an Army Base. My husband does have a CAC Card but I do not any more and I don't think it would be a good idea to go making trouble there. If it were a normal residential area I would be all over it.

I am going to call the MVA..and see what they say.

 

[army judge]

He lives on Ft Belvoir which is an Army Base. My husband does have a CAC Card but I do not any more and I don't think it would be a good idea to go making trouble there. If it were a normal residential area I would be all over it.

I am going to call the MVA..and see what they say.

If you want your plates very quickly, here's the easy way to do this.

Find out what unit this slug is assigned to on post.

Call the unit and ask for the commanding officer or 1st Sergeant.

Tell the CO or 1SG what this slug has done. Tell them how he has lied and stalled. Tell them all you want is your plates as promised.

You'll get your plates within an hour of your call (well, by the end of the day). You'll also get an apology.

Let me know what happens. If I have to, I'll make the call for you. I detest it when soldiers behave this way. There is no excuse for the way this turdball has treated you. I apologize for his poor behavior and broken promises.

 

[Jensgt]

Well I ended up calling the Bowie Police Non Emergency line and they sent an officer out to take a report. I had all the info written down and the guys address and number.

He called the CO at Belvoir and then called the guy himself but got a voicemail. He left a message to tell him what was going on and then told me that if I don't have my tags, or at least a tracking number by tomorrow at noon, to call him back and he would have no problem pressing charges on the guy. Nobody wants the guy to lose his job so we gave him ample time to bring them to me.

Well when I came in I had an email from him saying...oh they were in the trunk of the mustang my wife did not send them, I sent them yesterday they are in route.

Then 5 minutes later I had an email from him saying he can't believe I called the police and he could get in trouble and this and that and that I need to call the officer and tell him that he sent the plates and here is the tracking number...well I checked and it looks like he dropped them at fedex this morning...NOt yesterday.

I responded that I gave him 2 days to respond and he did not, Im going out of town Sunday and I needed this taken care of. I had been nice long enough.

He sent a couple more assinine emails saying that he contacted the officer and told him that he was on vacation 20 days therefore they had no case on him anyways...to which I responded....i told him you were in Illinois, and that you went on vacation without sending me my tags first like you should have. Also he said I could have just driven down there and got them if I needed them that bad. Problem is he would not even tell me he had them still and I responded...."Have I not done enough for you yet"??! Ridiculous. People can be such idiots.

Well he learned the hard way not to take things so lightly from now on hopefully. He said to me I cant believe you called the cops...and I was thinking the same thing...why in the world did i have to contact the police to get a military COP to send me my tags back.

SAD.

 

[mightymoose]

In the end you got your plates back.
This wasn't a theft anyway and would not have gone anywhere, but at least it got his attention.

Your other option was to go to MVA and explain the car was sold and plates were taken with the car. They could cancel the plate without it being returned, but would likely charge you a fee. You could then have sued to recover the cost of the fee... which would not have been worth it.

The guy was right though... you could have canceled the insurance at any time.

 

[Jensgt]

In the end you got your plates back.
This wasn't a theft anyway and would not have gone anywhere, but at least it got his attention.

Your other option was to go to MVA and explain the car was sold and plates were taken with the car. They could cancel the plate without it being returned, but would likely charge you a fee. You could then have sued to recover the cost of the fee... which would not have been worth it.

The guy was right though... you could have canceled the insurance at any time.

Had I cancelled my insurance 30 days would have passed and I would have been penalized with fees from
The mva. I explained this to him thy yes I could have cancelled the insurance but had i done that I would have ended up losing more money and I would have been a lot more angry. I was very nice to this guy and he did nothing but make excuses when all he should have done was send my plates back. Simple.

 

[army judge]

Had I cancelled my insurance 30 days would have passed and I would have been penalized with fees from
The mva. I explained this to him thy yes I could have cancelled the insurance but had i done that I would have ended up losing more money and I would have been a lot more angry. I was very nice to this guy and he did nothing but make excuses when all he should have done was send my plates back. Simple.

Actually, he conned you into letting him use the plates. That was your biggest mistake. If it had been me, I would have taken the plates off the vehicle. He would have been forced to go to DMV and purchase temporary plates.

Now you know what to do in the future. Don't try to help people you don't know, they usually screw you. Heck, even friends and family screw you!

 

[mightymoose]

Had I cancelled my insurance 30 days would have passed and I would have been penalized with fees from
The mva. I explained this to him thy yes I could have cancelled the insurance but had i done that I would have ended up losing more money and I would have been a lot more angry. I was very nice to this guy and he did nothing but make excuses when all he should have done was send my plates back. Simple.

You can't sue him for your failure to cancel the policy, however if you had canceled it and had to pay a fine since the plates were not returned promptly, you could have sued him to recover that fine.

In the end it all worked out though... lesson learned.