convoluted car issue

[jclarksnakes]

haha,
...I know all about how things work in the world today but that is no reason for everyone to accept it and pretend it is okay.
Jeff

 

[jclarksnakes]

Wahoo,
....You are right but the age of the lady in question makes no difference. It just sounded to me like the lady that Martha is trying to help is the type who make their own problems. If I am wrong Martha can say so.
Jeff

 

[Martha]

The world is not a simple world and the story is not a simple story. I figured that I would get a few "she is getting what she deserves" posts.

 

[haha]

The world is not a simple world and the story is not a simple story. I figured that I would get a few "she is getting what she deserves" posts.

Martha, to some people the world is always simple, and stories are always finished off with""Nuff said".

Maybe they wear simplifying goggles.

Ha

 

[MiamiDave]

My SO has a good friend she went to nursing school with who puts herself in numerous poorly-rationalized relationships. My SO and I don't particularly like it, but it doesn't affect us one way or the other. We don't lend her money or go out of our way to support her in these endeavors but if she were in any serious trouble I'm sure we'd lend all the moral support possible or anything else within reason (a ride, a place to stay for a single night, maybe two tops).

She recently got into another relationship with a person who she spends most of their time together inebriated. Supposedly it's serious, but the one time I saw them together I didn't even see them remotely affectionate towards one another. It looks like another recipe for disaster.

We try to steer her away from the people she generally dates but it doesn't work much so we've given up. I don't know what it is that causes people to constantly reach for destructive relationships.

With all that said, it's entirely possible this was a one-time type of deal for the OP's friend and normally she makes better judgements. Either way it's not fair to rush to such strong conclusions without knowing the person whatsoever. Everyone is entitled to making a mistake and it's possible this guy was her first major one.

 

[Nords]

Perhaps there is a legal mechanism wherein she can simply abandon ownership interest in the vehicle?

When you do that in Hawaii, you fill out a form and send it into the DMV.

Unfortunately it's a perforated form attached to the car's title, and it's partially pre-formatted with the VIN. There are sad stories around here about people selling their car and handing over the title without keeping their DMV notification part of it, and then a few months later the new owner's traffic tickets (or other police work) end up on the seller's record... even bench warrants.

Hawaii police aren't quite as enthused as those in Leo's neighborhood, for probably the same reasons involving extended family disputes. But at least our local cars tend to stay on the island.

As a person with 8 years in the auto financing industry, and experience dealing with vehicle titles on new point-of-sale contracts, I find some of the info provided by the OP in this thread to be a bit hard to believe. Maybe she's not giving you all of the information, or is not working on this problem as thoroughly as you are.

Boy, Dave, you're getting off to quite a good start on this board. Are you implying that you know Martha well enough to question her veracity, or that you don't expect moderators to tell the truth, or just that she has so few posts here that she might not be known well enough to be trusted?

Either way it's not fair to rush to such strong conclusions without knowing the person whatsoever.

Hey, that seems like good advice...

 

[Leonidas]

This is strange, very strange. I took a number of stolen car reports in which the person didn't have the VIN and easily obtained it from Maryland's Motor Vehicle Administration with a phone call. Even in the late 70's they had the ability to list "vehicles owned by [name]" and the listing of course included the VIN.

Every state is a little different, I remember that there were a couple of states we couldn't even get registration information from (Hawaii and Pennsylvania) over the computer. Before the state of Texas gave us the ability to buy alias license plates for our undercover cars any confiscated plates from either of those two states were highly sought after by anyone working UC.

It's been a few years since I was in the stolen car business, but I remember that owner name fields in most states were usually just a free form text entry, as opposed to formated searchable fields like VIN and LP.

The quality control over name entries was non-existent as well. A little old lady came into the office one day with a question about her title. She said she thought there was a mistake, she said "my name is wrong". So I looked at it and saw that the registered owner was identified as "F*&k You Pelton". I knew Pelton was a title clerk at the county and could only guess that one of his co-workers had decided to play a joke on him while he was away from his computer.

She could try calling Wisconsin's vehicle registration agency and contact an investigator. I would think they employ investigators - Maryland and WV do - as the shenanigans that go on with vehicle registrations are legion, although it can be a bear to actually reach one as they are VERY busy people. Reaching the right person will result in having the information in a few keystrokes.

That's something I didn't think of. Texas doesn't, or didn't anyway, have much of an investigative function in its DMV. They usually just sent anything suspicious to the appropriate police agency. Again, Wisconsin might be different.

Also try contacting the Lt or station commander at the police station or state police. To simply report a stolen car should not be that hard.

Even better still, if the agency is in a big city it probably has a unit solely dedicated to auto theft. If so, I would call there and ask to speak to a supervisor.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

the registered owner was identified as "F*&k You Pelton".

Hilarious. I remember a story about someone who told off a telemarketer and ended up getting a few thousand pieces of junk mail addressed to "@#%$@ing ^@@^$head jack@&^@" followed by his last name...

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

seems there should be some way of simply disowning something. you know, like how people do with other people. suppose you had a $500 junker which got towed from a no parking zone. the tow company has it for a few days while you are trying to get your act together and then legitimately charges you $600 storage fees, couldn't you just walk away from it at least as easily as people seem to be able to walk away from their mortgages?

 

[Leonidas]

seems there should be some way of simply disowning something. you know, like how people do with other people. suppose you had a $500 junker which got towed from a no parking zone. the tow company has it for a few days while you are trying to get your act together and then legitimately charges you $600 storage fees, couldn't you just walk away from it at least as easily as people seem to be able to walk away from their mortgages?

With the continued proviso that things are different in every state, in general this is true. But the difference between what you're describing and the situation Martha's friend finds herself in, is that the towing company and storage lot have a legal claim against the owner of the vehicle (towing and storage charges). After a specified period of time they can file a lien against the car for the money owed and then follow the normal course of law to enforce the lien, gain title and then sell the car to recoup their loss.

 

[MiamiDave]

Boy, Dave, you're getting off to quite a good start on this board. Are you implying that you know Martha well enough to question her veracity, or that you don't expect moderators to tell the truth, or just that she has so few posts here that she might not be known well enough to be trusted?

I'm not questioning Martha or her integrity. My lack of belief in the information she's providing is not in the sense that I find her lying, but in the sense that I've never experienced anything even remotely similar to what she says her friend is going through in relation to the Wisconsin DMV, or any others for that matter, when everything legal is in its correct place.

I speak from experience in dealing with not just Wisconsin's DMV, but at least 20 more across the country, and the only DMV I've even remotely found to be difficult to get information and paperwork from is Massachusetts, due to an excessive amount of red tape.

There is no debate in this issue as to who holds 100% unequivocal ownership of that vehicle unless there's some information not being completely revealed (and that may be entirely because her friend has not made her aware of it). Paperwork exists to gets lost, and if her DMV is telling her they won't provide her with the documentation necessary to file a stolen vehicle report on a vehicle she obviously owns I'd get a lawyer to send a demand letter. You can't deny legal rights to an owner.

 

[TromboneAl]

he got a ticket and she is getting chased to pay the ticket.

What kind of violation was it, and how much to pay the ticket?

I know the basic issue must be resolved, but if it's a $40 ticket, perhaps paying it (anonymously?) and then pursuing the underlying problem at a less stressful pace might be a good idea.

 

[ERD50]

Sounds to me like incompetent police......

Say you come out of a store... and your car is GONE... you call the police and they come to you...

YOU "Officer, my car was stolen"

OFF "Can you produce a title showing you actually owned this alleged car?"

YOU "No, since I do not have a car to get home. And anyway, I keep the titles in my safe deposit box and the bank is closed"

Off "Well, then how do we know that there was a car, and if there was one how do we know it was stolen. Do you think we can take your WORD for a serious crime like this?"

I know in Texas the police can look online to see who owned what vehicle...

TeaxasProud, this case is much different than what you describe. I wouldn't go calling those police 'incompetent', maybe they just have other priorities?

It is a very different thing when the car is stolen and you *do not* report it right away. But then decide to talk to the police about it only after that car is accumulating tickets. I think it is reasonable for the police to be thinking, hmmm, this was not a big priority for you, why should it be for me? It's a pretty safe assumption that the police do not have unlimited resources, so that would probably be a pretty good judgment call on their part. Not ideal, but we are dealing with reality here.

I wouldn't go as far as Martha's expectations of comments such as 'she is getting what she deserves' , but in general, people will get more help when they have demonstrated that they are trying to help themselves first. And (for probably a slew of complex reasons), that was not done here. Maybe she does not 'deserve it', but she shouldn't really be too surprised that the police are not jumping through hoops on this.

I hope things work out for her, and I hope she learns that you just need to deal with some things in a timely fashion, or they will come back to bite you.

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

What kind of violation was it, and how much to pay the ticket?

I know the basic issue must be resolved, but if it's a $40 ticket, perhaps paying it (anonymously?) and then pursuing the underlying problem at a less stressful pace might be a good idea.

There could be a bunch of tickets finding their way through the mail as we speak. I do kinda think she has to get to the root of it. Sooner than later.

-ERD50

 

[Marquette]

Wisconsin might be different.

Truer words were never spoken.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Its the cheese.

You can tell you're in trouble when trying to deal with the Mass. DMV. Because they go out of their way to call it the "registry of motor vehicles" instead of the "department of motor vehicles". When you cant even bring yourself to call your organization by the same name that the other states do, you're probably going to be troublesome in other aspects as well.

 

[MiamiDave]

Yeah we get occasionally audited by the Massachusetts Department of Financial Services and they're even more irritating than their DMV is. We've actually stopped doing business in that state because it's such a pain in the rear dealing with their government agencies. It's not worth the amount of manhours we have to invest.

 

[HFWR]

I'm having trouble with this ticket thing. Must've been a violation caused by the vehicle: no inspection, no insurance, no tags, light out... As someone pointed out earlier, moving violation tickets are usually issued to the driver. Maybe, though, you can pay the ticket, giving you a chance to see the location where it was issued, which might give a clue to the [-]perp's[/-] BF's whereabouts.

 

[Ronstar]

Your friend may have the VIN on maintenance receipts for the car.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Good idea. If they ever took it to the dealer for service (okay, that sounds like a stretch) they'd have the VIN on file.

 

[Ronstar]

Even my local (non-dealer) repair shop has my VIN on my oil change receipts

 

[Martha]

You folks have lot of good ideas. Thanks. People who don't have insurance don't take their cars to dealers for servicing and whatever servicing is done is done in a friends backyard.

I have located the ex-BF's mother. The ex-GF is going to call her to see if she will help in locating him so this can be resolved. If no luck there, back to trying the DMV route.

 

[Texas Proud]

TeaxasProud, this case is much different than what you describe. I wouldn't go calling those police 'incompetent', maybe they just have other priorities?

-ERD50

Yes... it was a bit harsh and I thought about it some with the other posts... and about what they are thinking and hearing... but then I come back to my thinking when I hear that they will not take a report without the VIN.. they are either lying or incompetent... both are bad IMO.. if a patrol car does not wish to do the work, then a desk jockey can... but the flip answer of 'we will not take a report'... well enough said...

And as someone else said... she should be able to get the VIN from the state... Maybe Texas is a bit different, but I sold a car and the guy calls me up and said he lost the title (6 months after I sold it).... I called our DMV right away... and ON THE PHONE they told me the VIN, what form I needed to fill out to get a new title, what form I needed to fill out and file with them to state that I had sold the car in case the guy did not title it again... they did ask me a number of questions to try and verify that it was 'ME'... what are your other cars, addresses, when last inspected or some such... can't remember... but very very helpful.... I can not believe another state would just brush off someone like the OP said...

 

[Martha]

Update time. The saga continues. We found the BF's mother and sister but they profess not to know where he is. Nevertheless, we told them that "we don't want any trouble" and just want to transfer the title at this point to the ex BF. Maybe he will get the message, but we have not heard anything yet.

I also assigned the title holder the job of going back to the DMV with several talking points. I haven't heard back from her either.

 

[UncleHoney]

How this story will end is anyone's guess, but it will end within a year.

Boyfriend has the title and car with a current registration and license plates. But boyfriend can not register the car and get new license plates next year because his name isn't on the title. When the current plates expire the game will be over and the car will be found and impounded and guess who will get notified and how much the impounding fees are?

Maybe the girlfriend should just pay the ticket and mark it down in her feeble little mind as another one of life's little lessons.