Almost two months ago I bought a CPO Audi A6 from the local dealer,
and recently had been wondering why I hadn’t received my
registration. I got a phone call this morning from an investigator at
the DMV asking to come out and inspect my car.

The guy comes to look, and we matched up the dash VIN with the ones on
the firewall and in the door jamb. It turns out that my vehicle’s VIN
was used to get a title for another car, so I have the original and
someone else has the clone.

Called the dealer, and they told me that when they tried to register
mine, the DMV confiscated the title and wouldn’t let them, saying that
their title was invalid because it had been re-issued, apparently to
the previous owner. They had been fighting this thing for 4 weeks.
They have filed charges against the previous owner and SLED (South
Carolina Law Enforcement Division) is also involved.

The FBI website has some good info on car cloning. If you’re
unfortunate enough to end up with a clone, it will be confiscated and
you’ll be left without the car or your money… a real mess. I’ve heard
of this being done to classic cars to increase their pedigree and
worth, but not to late model cars. Thieves use this to “clean up” a
stolen car, allowing it to be registered in another state and sold.
Supposedly there will be a nationwide database implemented by next
year that all states will use as a clearing house to stop this
practice.