Crime & Safety
Seller Caught in Craigslist Scam Still Owes $23.9K on Car
A Bloomfield Township man sold his car on Craigslist, bank transferred the title and the check bounced — but that's not all that happened.
BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, MI — A man who thought he successfully negotiated the sale of a vehicle on Craigslist is out a vehicle and still owes the bank that financed it $23,900, but that’s not all Bloomfield Township investigators learned when they got involved in the case on Sept. 7.
When police tracked the vehicle down in Illinois, “it had been bought and sold several times,” according to a news release.
In the Bloomfield Township transaction, a buyer on the Craigslist online classified site agreed to purchase the vehicle for $24,500. Because the seller still owed money on the vehicle, he instructed the buyer to send the check to bank so the title could be transferred.
Find out what's happening in Bloomfield-Bloomfield Hillsfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
He did, the bank made the title transfer and the seller turned the vehicle over to the out-of-state buyer.
The buyer’s check bounced a few days later, and the bank contacted the seller and told him he still owed $23,900 on a vehicle he no longer owned.
Find out what's happening in Bloomfield-Bloomfield Hillsfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Detectives with the Bloomfield Township Investigations unit are continuing to investigate.
Photo by Jean-Etienne Minh-Duy Poirrier via Flickr Commons
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
