How does the state bare that fault? These cars were not reported stolen until after the title was issues. There for there was nothing the state could see that would tell them to stop it
@Troy Hendrickson "the government" isn't some monolithic entity. One state acting in good faith on bad information shouldn't be blamed for another state dropping the ball on making sure information it hands out is correct.
I work for a dealership, and the truck drivers I’ve chatted with have told me it can take them hours just to find 1 vehicle sometimes at these lots. Fords lots got so backed up with vehicles waiting for parts that the truckers union demanded hazmat teams cleared the vehicles because of rodent and wasp infestations.
A dealer getting new vehicles from anywhere but the mfg. New there was a problem. Here on Ontario Canada the cars stolen are in a container and on a ship within hours of being taken.
Hey Doug, I live in central Florida, but when I lived in south Florida that was big time in S.F. lots of cars not just high end expensive cars but every day Toyotas Hondas fords, well you get it, they put them in containers and off they go at one point on the local news they said well over 70 percent were put on containers and shipped off to who knows where. Didn't know that was done in Canada too.
Maybe there is a broker layer between some mfgrs and dealers. The dealer are contacted by the brokers, who say, we have several F-150's from a dealer in Georgia that closed down. We are looking for a new home for them. Then they make the deal, and deliver the cars
@@shag139 What makes you think it was for a price that was too good to be true? It seems like everybody paid fair maket rates for their vehicles. 1500 mile vehicles aren't unheard of either. I had a friend that bought a new vehicle and then turned around and sold it within a few months to get something else. It is definitely uncommon, but when you're dealing with the whole nation (since the cars were "going" from Georgia to Arizona), I am positive you could find 100 such vehicles pretty easily.
Steve , I was a DMV Sr Inspector for 31 years and I agree with you that it ultimately comes back to FMC for their lack of oversight on the vehicles , When I first came on the job, the auto business was like the old wild west , OOC , it has come a long way , A lot of the states now comply with the Federal guidelines for titles , IE format of the tile document and and security provisions . Those stolen Georgia titles were the key . Like you said the bottom line is the customer who ended up with one of these vehicles is out the vehicle AND the money !!! Their chances of getting any recourse with a judgement is very slim at best . The thing people have to realize is auto theft is the start of a lot of spin off crime , with the vehicles being used in other crimes . The other problem in my time is the FED"s had a low interest in auto theft unless it was big numbers .IATIA has helped a lot by making law enforcement from all over the country aware of what's going on and the new scams being used , Just as a FYI , in my time in NYC , back in the day there were on average 1100 vehicle's a DAY stolen in NYC !!! yup , we busy !!!!LOL , I could tell you some great stories !!!! all the best , stay safe BOB K
If this many trucks is a so irrelevant that they don't even notice than maybe they should make it right for their customers, button up their security and write it off.
I used to work at Rothrock Chevrolet in Springfield PA. We had an offsite storage lot where quite a few cars went missing. It sometimes took a week or more to even notice one was missing. The last dealership I worked at was a WV dealer, I won't mention the name cause they are still in business. We had 3 new cars stolen off the lot one night and nobody noticed for almost a week. One was recovered in a container at the port of Baltimore.
I used to work for a tow truck company that normally had about 800 vehicles in storage at any one time scattered over several lots. Keeping track of keys was a nightmare, especially now that fobs cost several hundred each to replace. Keeping the inventory updated was challenging, and expensive in employee time. Eventually we started an envelope for each vehicle holding the paperwork and fobs. Imagine the fun of trying to locate misfiled envelope and the shear volume they take up when stored so that any one envelope can be located when needed. Many years ago, for a short time vehicle manufacturers started putting bar codes on the VIN plates. I don't know why that stopped, but it would have made keep inventory up to date much faster. Plus, the federal required placement for VIN plates on the dash next to the windshield is just stupid. Anything tossed on the dash can cover it, carpeting the dash can cover it, replacing a cracked dash with one from wrecking yard can be a nightmare ( yes I know, they are SUPPOSED to be removed ), sealant from a replacement windshield can cover it, and water dripping down the inside of the windshield will rust them out. Years ago some Mercedes had them half way up the number one post visible through the windshield, I think this was a much better spot.
Different vehicles are different. My employer is leasing a 2023 Ford e-transit. There is a barcode and the VIN is visible through the glass, but it's below the dash, not on top of it, and a piece of paper isn't sliding down to cover it.
@@danrossell6375 You can obscure them. You just cannot alter or remove them from the part to which they are attached. That's why, when buying, you should look on the dash, on the door and under the hood to make sure that the VINs are present and match and have not been tampered with. If they do not titles or copies of multiple titles will suffice.
You made me flash back to when my mom sold her motel my parents built when she retired. There was a box still filled with things customers left. Full of car keys mainly. We should have kept them for a craft project or something. Brass hadn't come up in price yet. There was almost enough to weigh out and scrap.
I actually saw an article the other day about a train robbery. The crew had found a stopped vehicle transport train and were on board sawing off catalytic converters. When the train started moving an associate jumped on board and held them at gun point to make them stop
Holy cow! As far as the law pertaining to such things is concerned, they may as well have hijacked an airplane. If caught, it's doubtful that those guys will ever breathe free air again.
@@DJVIIIMan And they should not be allowed to ever breathe free air ever again, I am so sick of thieves in every aspect of life when/if they catch them buried them they are a waste of skin and provide no benefit to humanity.
Over 30 years ago my car was stolen right in front of my house. I called the police first then the insurance company. One of the first questions the insurance company asked was " were the keys left in the car and does anybody else have the keys?" Think about that.
I work for a company that ships a particular part to the big 3 but I'm not sure I'm allowed to say what the part is. But I work in the shipping and receiving side of this company and just to be clear the company ITW is massive and I work in the automotive side of the company. But I'm shipping thousands of pieces/parts depending on how you want to call it and after listening to Steve Lehto I'm starting to understand why the demand for this one part is needed. Love you Steve Lehto been listening to you for a few years now and I have a little better understanding of how things go when I never used to. Thank you so much bud and always keep us up to date when you can :)
Steve, you might get a kick out of this: The other day I saw that my local RV shop had a busted out garage door spilling out into the street - an obvious heist of some sort. A few days later I saw on the marquee "Hiring 3 mechanics $20 - $30 an hour."
@@codemiesterbeats sounds about right, depending on the tech their kit's value would pay at least a house deposit (my uncle's was around 30k by his maths when he died and that was just the two racks). So they'd be justifiably pissed at that sort of loss.
Great job Phoebe! Definitely sounds like an inside job & I'm also sure we will be hearing about more of this... with other models of cars as well...😉 Thank you Mr. Lehto 🧡 wishing you a lovely weekend ⚘️☀️⚘️
Having transported vehicles ranging from domestics to Ferrari, Bentley, Rolls Royce etc etc. I can say every manufacturer leaves the keys in every car in their ports, holding areas etc. Transporters pick up 24/7, so leaving keys in is standard practice. Usually one fob is there for transport and the other fob is sealed up with owners manuals. Thefts aren't common, but it does happen.
U forget about one thing, if u ship a Bentley car is TR(they can't run faster than 10kmph) mode that's need a computer to remove. IRC VA Group use this across all brands, u can't remove TR flag without connection to servers.
@@mateuszzimon8216 take your word for it, I retired 5 years ago. I do remember back in the day when guys would see how fast a car would go between parking spot and their truck...😉
This reminded me of something that happened to me back in the late 70's. The local Goodyear in my hometown made that's boards for vehicles in. I drove a truck at the time and was constantly taking dashboards to the factory's. It was always the same routine, check in with the guard and then back around the building to the receiving dock. (One of the reasons they always sent me is because I could back around corners a couple of times in a row) Then one day the routine changed, and the guards stopped me on my way out to inspect my trailer. As he approached the cab to tell me I could leave I asked him what was up since he never inspected my trailer before. He told me that a couple weeks earlier someone had loaded up a jeep that was off to the side for repair and drove out with. So now they had to inspect trucks as they left. I always wondered how they got the Jeep up into the trailer
@@toolman9573 You can place your mouse over your original reply and 3 dots will pop up in your posts top right corner. If you click on the 3 dots "edit" will come up as one of the choices. Then you can go back and edit your reply without replying to your own reply with an edit.
This lies right at the feet of Ford . It is hard to believe with all the technology that Ford couldn't keep track of these vehicles any better than they did . I feel sorry for the end buyers .
I know guys that would be more willing to buy a truck that doesn’t have a manufacturer tracker than a Chevy which can remotely shut off the truck. Personally I’d rather own a ford even after hearing this story.
Besides, if it was an inside job, then the buyer bought the car from a Ford employee who then pocketed the money. The car wasn't stolen... the money was.
Very wrong. That is blaming the victim. The same as if you leave the keys in your car when you run inside a store., stealing a car is the crime. Leaving the keys in your car isn't. Even if you find a car apparently abandoned on the side of the road, it isn't yours so taking it is theft. Yes, it is unfortunate that Ford was foolish and had lax security. That still doesn't excuse the theft of the car. Whether deliberate or not, whomever sold you the car is responsible. If you bought brand new cars (or trucks) from someone that wasn't a registered Ford dealer or Ford wholesale agent then you made a mistake. If you bought it from someone who could also get you a deal on a Rolex watch he keeps inside his trenchcoat and has an office in Starbucks, ya, you might be making a mistake. But if you buy it from someone with a license on the wall, you can at least know who you can ask for your money back. Theft can never be excused because the owner made a mistake.
Back in the late 60s my dads friends would take cars off the lot. They were teens living near a factory in Detroit and most of the time would just drive around town.
A good friend of mine has a private garden which he bought from the person who inherit the property but have no use for it. On this property his grandfather had an old tractor which the use a power generator. 2 weeks later, as my friend was on vacation, the wife of the last owner of the property, who hasn't inherit her the property hired some guys and told them to clean out the property. They "stole" a couple of gardening tools and the tractor. Fortunately he could report to the police everything that was stolen including the registration number from the tractor. 10 years later in another part of the country someone who had bought the tractor from some else (maybe 5 different owners at the time), restored it and THEN try to registrate it. Unfortunetly for them, the manhunt for the vehicle was not yet time-barred, so he got his tractor back fully restored. But what would that have been a surprise for him getting a police officer on the phone telling him his stolen vehicle was found 10 years later?
But what about the person who bought it, restored it, and put in all of the time and effort to restore it, find the parts, sandblast the old paint off, put the right color of new paint on, etc. Why should the end person get screwed for buying the tractor and putting in a large amount of effort and being someone who wants to ensure everything is on the up and up paperwork wise, unlike the people before him? Why should that person be screwed? It seems like penalizing the person for trying to be a good person to make sure the registration was transferred. At auctions I've only gotten a bill of sale before on some equipment because it's not on the road and cops don't pull you over on your own farm riding a dirty tractor. I've gone in with a bill of sale and the ID #'s and to be told "HA, you just lost a bunch of money and time, shouldn't have tried to be a legal person and just kept it in the back 40 or done a cash sale" would absolutely suck. I would probably never want to register anything again if I didn't absolutely have to. A good tractor can cost as much as one of these trucks in the video or more.
My car auction I worked at for 10 years left keys in the cars. There were so many freaking cars really there was no other way. We also had on site security, a locked fence with barbed wire. The fence also had electronic security and it was electrified. Still people with short the fence out and then cut through it to steal cars. It didn't happen very often but the funniest one I thought was when they stole a late model Chrysler 300 with these huge chrome rims that was only running on like 2 cylinders 😹😹😹
They weren't just stealing ANY cars they were stealing THEIR cars back. 😂 Had an auto auction owner steal my car from a gas station while I went to get a new battery to put in it. Just a dude with a tow truck and an auction house. Not a tow agency, so he had no duty to report the tow to police. Took weeks to figure out that the gas station landlord had stolen my car. Eventually got it back but had to hire a tow to drag it off a small mountain of hard packed snow. I stalked the guy a bit, all ready to beat the snot out of him, then I found out he was an 80 year old man.
Every vehicle auction house I've ever been to stored a key/fob in vehicle. Every one. It is the only way to do it as you may have dozens or even hundreds of people a day wanting to inspect numerous vehicles each before the auction. There is no way someone could keep going to each vehicle or handing out those keys and then getting them back in and filing them. Watch the videos of folks going to Copart, the key/fob is tie wrapped around the column or steering wheel and their security is minimal but most times there is only but a couple ways in and out of a lot not including a garage/building. With Copart the vehicle is only listed in a section and not one parking spot. Other auction houses usually have vehicle listed to a spot but this always doesn't ring true as sometimes folks repark them a few spots away after testing
If states can sue Kia for selling cars with keys and tires being a "theft hazard" surely these folk can successfully sue Ford for such blatant negligence.
No kidding. They're lucky it was just a car theft ring. It could have just as easily been a bunch of terrorists. You can load a lot of explosives into an F150.
Ford probably set up a system that they thought was adequate but the human element was a weakness. After all they did not want to lose their inventory.
In the late 1990's I got a gig unloading cars from a bulk carrier from Japan. It was a fun part time job and someone fit could make good money since we were paid per car moved. It was basically, get a car, have the vin checked by the supervisor, drive it off the ship (very carefully), drive about 1/2 mile (very carefully), park it (very carefully), leave the keys in the unlocked car, then RUN back to the boat to do it again. They also had golf carts running loops around the lot but it was often times faster just to book it back to the next car in line on the ship. The lot with thousands of brand new cars, was surrounded by a generic 8-foot chainlink fence and a rent-a-cop shack at the entrance. I did this a few times over the summer and I would see the lines of cars sitting there for weeks. The way they were parked (inches apart) it would be near impossible for someone to actually audit the fleet and determine exactly what cars were on the lot. I don't think it would require a master criminal to make off with a few cars and have a few weeks to move them around before anyone figured out something was missing. Hell, with some bogus paperwork, you could pull up in a car hauler and drive off with 10 cars and not a single person would care.
The 1991 F-150 I'm still driving after 31 years had 15.8 miles on it when I drove it off the lot on May 15, 1992. That includes every inch it moved from when it came off the assembly line in June 1991 until after it was prepped for me. I hope no one is trying to call those stolen trucks "new".
A little bit late, but there is a solution in place. Just mark the VIN as in Factory Storage. Automatically assumed stolen vehicle if it’s not in the storage lot! (Without a move order) With this, no vehicle title can be changed until the manufacturer then changes to the next state (Ready for Sale) or something like that. Red Tape will help with this issue. Edit: typo Edit: Question: Who is running this VIN database? This could be a whole different video.
And the next problem when the same lazy people are still running the storage lot The solution is if they report it stolen after a title is issues , to bad so sad for ford
@@hirotakasugi4891 I can’t imagine the mess that would happen by having thousands of sets of keys back inside the factory. They could have a locked up shack on the lot with the keys in it but that would also be a mess. It also wouldn’t solve the issue because someone just needs to break into that shack to steal the keys.
Why is it that only the last person in the chain is the one to suffer the loss. They should agressivly undo the entire chain of sales back to the first person who sold it or as far back as they can trace the issue. It needs to be un-wound as far back as you can go to find the perpetrator OR as far back as you can trace a chain of honest folks to the first person who may have made a mistake in how the transaction was handled.
@@russellhltn1396 Since each transaction was fradulent, it should be handled by the police directly. Why do they stop after only the last person in the chain...
@@ronwatkins5775 : "Low hanging fruit". Sometimes also known as: "Exert the least possible effort". Once you have somebody (really anybody), who can be prosecuted, that's where the "investigation" ends. [Edited for a spelling error]
They will unwind these as far as they can. Consumers are protected. Thieves won't have used their real names or Id's. Like _musical chairs,_ someone will find they have no place to sit.
@@ronwatkins5775 It depends on what they're after. They may only be interested in seizing stolen property. Only if they're interested in breaking the ring or pressing charges will they go up the chain.
If i may give some insight on these holding lots, let me start by saying. i own a auto transport company, we go to holding lots a lot. So, when we go, we have a list of vins we are to get, often times when we go there the people at the lot are supposed to check the vins against our list, but most don't. when we get the vehicles staged next to our truck for loading, there is supposed to be someone there to check the vins. but most of the time there is no one there to check, they just tell us to get loaded and get going. so, there is potential for someone just loading vehicles and leaving. There is supposed to be a person at the inlet gate at the lots but most times there is no one there and there just open to enter and exit. Just something to think about. some of these might be walking out of lots on theft trans ports.
As someone who previously worked security I can say my coworkers and I are usually underpaid and understaffed. The security companies sometimes hire ANYONE who can pass a background check, not a drug test. Sometimes we are not even given clear instructions on what our job is, thankfully I asked and did check, but if you were a regular to the lot I can easily see many coworkers being like "IDK, go find em and load em" and continue to play on their phone or even do substances at work. We are supposed to be at the gate or doing rounds and be back in a certain amount of time. Do I believe many people actually did their job? No. Turnover was high, pay sucked, benefits - none usually, hours sucked, usually poorly run companies and the people who lasted the longest did the least amount of work and went home to play Xbox/Playstation in Mom's Basement.
@@ding9633 This has been going on for a long time. this is not resent. Like 1 in 10 loads are missing vin's on the lot, been that way since i started in 2002. Some of the biggest rail yards in this country are worse than the manufactures holding lots.
Gotta wonder about dealerships buying these... I've been a mechanic at a Chrysler (now Stellantis) dealer for just over 20 years now... Every piece of paperwork on the repair order has the original sell date, the selling dealership, and the original owner, and has for well over 15 years now... And that is data gotten directly from Chrysler not a Carfax or title search... So I would kinda imagine a dealership getting multiple used (new) vehicles with just a few thousand miles on them know something is up. I mean if it was just one maybe they missed it.... But 4? That is negligence if they are a dealership.
One more step. If those storage yards are third party, Ford can go after them for being the negligent ones if they wrote the contract halfway decently.
@@tomboone201 Then clearly the blame is on Ford and they should be able to afford Cameras for their lot of trucks that are over $65k ea x 1000 ($65,000,000 per lot of 1,000 trucks or more) and cameras at the gates to see who comes and goes backed up to a DVR or to the cloud for a main headquarters to view. If I had $65million in goods stored somewhere. . . .the PD would not note that I had no cameras, my good weren't reported as missing for months, and my fence was not damaged. I'd be finding out who took that truck off the lot so fast the evidence going to the PD to press full charges and my lawyers would at them for breakfast. They stole it, they can pay for it or return it in the condition it was on the lot and I would press charges. Of course they would be fired so paying me back for $65k or more will be hard with a record. I've worked security and I can code so the idea that they can't have a way to check out vehicles leaving the lot is simply insane to me. If that gate opens it's either an employee coming or going for a scheduled shift or it's a vehicle that is checked in or out.
I have worked at the Ford Kansas City assembly Plant for 22 years and starting back in 2013. They started putting GPS locators as part of the mobile hotspot/Bluetooth accessories.. trucks that have been manufactured that have not been accepted by delivery to the dealerships. All those trucks still have active GPS on them.
Worked for a small shipping company. I was the back-end programmer making some of this happen ... thousands of packages a day, from envelopes to pallets all up and down NE US. We had scanners (installed not long after I got there ...) and almost everyone in the warehouse carried a scanner.... later these became everybody's phone... EVERY TIME a package was handled it was scanned. A label with barcode slapped on when it first came into our system, when it was loaded, every time it changed trucks (mostly warehouses, but some smaller packages would be "roadside" handoffs between drivers, and occasionally a truck would do a partial transfer to another in a parking lot). Hundreds of thousands a year, and we "lost" VERY few typically 5-10 a week and they were ususally not "packages" as such but something that fell out of or off of a pallet or poorly packed box -- larger customers could do their own labels and prelim scanning and our truck would stop as if they were one of our warehouses ... usually OK -- and we'd take trouble to see that the customer's "lost" package got where it needed to go, but if it was customer packed, it was on them if something came loose or wasn't labeled . Now some of those packages we were taking gross $5 for.... (no way to tell what their value was, obviously more than that for the customer...) . But losing track of packages was a big sin. And we were good at NOT losing track of it. (Um, we had tight schedules and boasted high on-time's even with low loss). Bottom line, for something of value in tens of thousands and up, not to mention that it's too big to not notice if it falls off a pallet.... there's no excuse, particularly these days ... when most vehicles are loaded with electronics anyway ... for any large auto company not to be able to track their inventory. I'll grant that if an insider knows the setup they might now how to get in with a few friends and quietly drive a couple away at night .... But these days someone should be able to walk the aisles of the lot with a transponder and the inventory should be complete when done ..... If there's something missing, you go to where the vehicle was last scanned ... if the transponder tag failed you replace it ... if the vehicle is gone, you do a commpany wilde notice of it missing and then (should be by policy) after two or three days(on a weekend or holiday) you report it stolen. All pretty simple. One loss in a thousand would still be high (IMO - and speaking inventory, not vehicle failures or returns for various reasons) One in ten thousand more realistic. But even at one in a hundred FOUR from a single lot until a HUNDRED MILLION cars moved through that lot (which would be a HUGE lot, obviously), Anything less is CLEAR negligence IMO. Bet their insurance for the stored vehicles is insane. Were I actuary at for the insurance underwriters I'd be on Ford's tail as soon as I heard this.... which is probably why Ford is fighting rather than just writing it off (In an even earlier life I was pet programmer for an Actuary ... capital A, one small step below God in the insurance game).
As big as FORD MOTOR COMPANY is, I would wonder if they were not SELF INSURED and if so maybe to hold cost to a minimum again, they are not as though as they should be or possibly could be? So there would not be any outside pressure from. An outside company to do better!
Off Topic: I live in AZ. There are some motorcycles that are 100% track use only and they are NEVER supposed to be used on the street. You can easily add the required items and usually, from the street legal versions and then register them in AZ with a COO. Sometimes, you pick the backwoods MVD and register it there. After that, the State just wants the money.
Talk about stupid, Ford should be heald accountable for not keeping proper accountability of their inventory. And why are they building so many then putting them in a storage lot though the purpose was to SELL what you build. Hint if you keep them back the dealers can claim (can't get them) so now they want about N extra 20,000 for one. Hope everyone sees this. GM is doing it too, all a scam on the buyer. Wise up people!!!
Question: When you get a loan for one of those stolen vehicles are you still liable to pay off the loan after the vehicle is taken from you by the police?
@Mr. Richard C. So, with the truck impounded, the loan company can't resell it to help pay off the loan, and with a fraudulent title in question, they probably couldn't sell it anyway. So, the loan company is screwed as well.
No you are expected to pay your loan, and the towing and storage of the stolen vehicle in your possession, from your jail cell, while awaiting charges for vehicle theft. I'm kidding. But I bet it has happened before.
Steve had talked about this before. The dealer is liable to the purchaser and the lender. _Warranty of Title_ is the key term here. The dealer had a legal obligation to convey a valid title (not just a piece of paper) and they are unable to do so with a stolen vehicle.
Phoebe interviewed me for her series on the Focus transmission debacle. She was able to report that with the help of a Lemon Law attorney, Ford bought the car back for a significant amount. The notorious 'dual clutch' transmission failed 5 times. Ford is still plagued with poor quality vehicles. I feel sorry for their dealers.
The crazy thing is they have perfectly good automatic transmissions. I guess CAFE forced them to use the faulty ones. Otherwise I can't see why they didn't switch back to the perfectly fine 6 speed auto they use in other vehicles like the Escape. Even more crazy, the Escape is built on the same platform as the Focus.
They actually just forced their dealers to raise prices on their trucks within the past two years. It was a bad move on Ford's part as I don't live near a Ford plant, but I can tell you that I drive by the same Ford dealerships with the same trucks sitting in them and they are not moving at the prices they want and are not competitive in the current market environment. Ford has also cut manufacturing on some other vehicles that are smaller and put so much into it's truck production w/o making them worth the large price tag imo. I miss my 1992 Ford, you know, it was made of metal and not plastic.
@@nicholasvinen "I guess CAFE forced them to use the faulty ones." Hahahahahahah. Right: it was the guvmint's fault. Hahahahaha. Ford knew the dual clutch transmission was defective BEFORE the first Gen 2 Focus rolled off assembly line. Hahahahahahah
Not necessarily. Dealers often trade new vehicles between each other for various inventory reasons. Dealer A has a model in blue. Dealer B has a buyer who wants it. They do a transfer and sell the car. Dealer A gets paid by B. Later on, A might need a car from B and they'll reciprocate. Happens all the time in my area. Heck, the last new car I bought was in another part of the state. I wanted a rare paint and interior combo. The dealer I bought from had the car transferred and sold it to me with 8 miles on the clock. It went factory to dealer to dealer to me.
9:08 "Question is, who owns those vehicles?" The _police_ now own those vehicles - civil asset forfeiture, right? PS: On second thought...they probably wouldn't do that to a company that has it's own lawyers on staff, and has _very_ deep pockets.
Purchased a new 1979 Ford Bronco. Was stolen from drive way. Took title to local police department and was told they couldn’t put into the system because the vin number on the title was incorrect. Dealer met me that same day and gave me copy of MSO which matched the number on the title. Took copy of the MSO with the matching title back to police department and they said that the MSO from Ford must be wrong because their police system wouldn’t allow them to put it in thus it could not be reported stolen. Had to sue Prudential insurance too get them to pay for non recovered loss. Fast forward 8 months. Talking with a State patrol explaining my trials with the vehicle he knew way too much and told me why the local police wouldn’t enter the vin number was because they stole it along with two other vehicles at the same time.
If there are 10,000 vehicles on storage lot , 15 come up missing , they would have to check all the vin's on the remaining vehicles order to identify the missing ones . that would take weeks to do .
@@shoersa If the trucks have been on the lot for a long time ,the batteries are probably dead or not have batteries in them , the tracking devices may not be working to tell you what's or not there on the lot .
Great story, thanks for bringing it to us. As you note, the vehicles could have a bar code to scan as they leave the assembly line. All the shipping companies have tracking numbers to know where a package is (mostly) at all times. Rental car companies typically seem to have an accounting of vehicles in their lots, why is this an issue for the auto industry? Interesting the focus is on the domestics, like so many other legacy auto industry issues.
You might be interested to know that AZ requires notarized signatures on AZ titles as a part of the title transfer process. So once those folks had their forged Georgia titles changed to AZ titles, then they had a document which had to be signed and the signature notarized before it could be transferred again to the actual target of their scam.
Here is Colorado, they go by the requirements of the state they came from. When I moved here, I had to have the titles notarized, because the old state required it. When I bought a trailer from out of state, it was from a state that did not require it, so Colorado did not require it.
All a notary does is validate that the person(s) signing the document are who they say they are; I did that with transferring a car title from my mother to myself, which in Arizona requires a notary to witness it. The notary in these cases could be either someone who was bribed, or was duped, or was in on the whole thing.
Geez louise...F O R D always meant "Found On Road Dead" to me and my buds...but now we have to change it to F O R S: Found On Road Stolen! Criminals are everywhere (except behind bars) anymore. Feeling sorry for those ensnared in this mess.
When I was young I worked at Fleetwood RV in Riverside. While I work there over one weekend somebody came in and stole four class A RVs. It took them several months to figure out which four were gone .
There is so many ways that they could have validated this for pennies. I work in automation. This is a cakewalk in code to fix. They were negligent and should be put through the ringer.
you are absolutely correct. I work (and have for 20+ years) for companies that sell computer/IT hardware. We know the serial numbers down to the component level and can track if the hardware is ever lost, stolen, destroyed or put on the second hand market. This is simply a failure of will on the part of the automaker and everyone down to the victimized consumer and dealer.
When I was living in the UK back in the 70s/80s. there was a news story about a guy who reported his neighbor. The neighbor was a security guard at Dagenham docks. The neighbor noticed that he came home with a different color car every night.
@@NorthernKitty Steve just did a video about the Trade Mark dispute between the squeaky toy's manufacture and Jack Daniels. (Jack Daniels won.) My assumption was that it's being a squeaky toy was common knowledge.
Speaking of chop shops. There is a junk yard by me that replaced a cop car motor. The cops later found out the motor came from a stolen vehicle. Someone there had ran the vin on the paperwork for the replacement motor. They absolutely charged the garage
When those cars come off the assembly line each one could have one of those special stick-on tags that stores use to set off an alarm if someone tries to shoplift an item. Ford could use a special frequency for those alarm tags and no one could leave with one of those vehicles without setting off an alarm. The alarm could be shut off only when a person with a special scanner turned it off. Ford could place them in various places around the vehicle so there would be no one spot to look for them.
Class Action - There is now a 'class' of the buyers who suffered from neglegence, the only way to fix this problem is a cradle-to-grave tracking of VINs, when the vin is applied to the car, it gets tracked as 'in assembly' on VIN databases that way if it disappears and hasn't been listed as 'delivered' then when the vin would pop up as 'in assembly' you have a problem of either a theft or lateness in changing status to 'delivered'.
The dealership that is purchasing the vehicle with a Georgia title isn't paying in cash, so there is an electronic record that the banks have for who the money was transferred to. If there's a will, there's a way to sell stolen goods. On a dealership level, it's got to be a big red flag for a vehicle with less than 2,000 miles being sold to a dealership. A private party sale would have been much simpler with a cashiers check, as once the funds are verified, the check is assumed as being good.
Dealer: _WHY do you want to sell your new truck?_ Seller: _I really love this truck, but Mom is going to lose her house if she doesn't make the back-payments on her mortgage. I moved here to help her out, but the deadline is too close, so I've got to sell._ The dealer then gives the seller a haircut and buys the truck.
There's a lot of people out there with more money than they know what to do with. They'll buy a new car without financing, then a month or two later realize they want a different color, or different options, or a different model. So they'll trade it in with only a few thousand miles for something else. As long as the title comes back clean, I don't think the dealership is going to ask anything further. Honestly they wouldn't want to offend the customer by insinuating that it might be a stolen vehicle, especially when the title doesn't reflect that it is.
@@kevinsok3011 You're talking about trade-in cars or trucks. A friend had his dealers license and would hit the auctions every Wednesday. Most of the local dealers wanted nothing to do with out of state vehicles, as it took too long to get clear title unless the auction house did the title work. It wasn't a fast process. Most people in the business are going to look at the out of state title and registration and if purchased will be an electronic funds transfer. Even with payment via cashiers check, the banks place a 10 day hold on funds pending clearance. (plus the FedGod getting notified)
I work for a transport company. We’ve dealt with F150s in Michigan and Kansas City. Also Explorers in Chicago. Every lot except for one. Was run by outside companies . All the other lots are rented by ford. The other lots are run by independent companies. Only a few have removed the keys and stored them in a secure area. The rest are always in the vehicle’s. If memory serves me it was 2021 when 13/14 F150’s were stolen from a holding lot. I’m sure there are many more. There’s not much as far as inventory tracking. We were sent emailed lists of units to move from one lot to another. Seeing how unacceptable that system was. We suggested other tracking options. Which would show current inventory at each location. I think they used it only while we were there. But the definitely are the responsible party.
Difference is, Hertz ASSUMES their car is stolen if they cant fibd it due to a clerical error and the valid renter is arrested by police through GPS locator. HERTZ then only says"opps, sorry" but the cops take the hit as the perpetrators against the valid renter lawsuit which is inevitable.
I worked in some big euro player and i can be surely wrong. But most of cars leaving are in transit mode, and locked down to 5kmph and they must be connected to intranet of this company to remove this flag from ECU/BCU.
The Ford truck plant in Louisville, KY uses the Kentucky Speedway for storage. And it's not really secure. They have gates on the roads, but there's no fencing. I can't imagine they leave the keys in these trucks, but who is responsible for keys for thousands of keys parked at the Speedway?
I bought a car from a private seller in CT once. My first time ever doing it. I was scammed, title had 3 other buyers on it. I had to break the law in order to get rid of the car. The dmv wouldn't take the title, and the seller wouldnt answer his calls. So i washed the ink pff the title, it doscoloured it. But! My luck was on my side because that was RIGHT AFTER hurricane sandy. So i told them my house flooded woth the title thats why it was discoloured. As soon as i had my title in NY, i scrapped it, because it was so jacked up. I lose 800 for that and a good lesson learned.
No, You're not the only one. I found it fishy. No dealership buys that many with out wondering why there are so many F150's with only a few thousand miles on them available at the same time.
If I own a bunch of cars and one (or more) gets stolen like these ford trucks did but I don't notice for a long time how am I negligent? It's my property. I don't owe anyone anything. Those cars were not for sale (not yet anyways). How could I be sued for not protecting them better?
Yeah, they'd need to constantly inventory their lots and not let any unsold vehicles vin number go "unfound" for more than a week. I worked at a few car dealers and we wouldn't have a clue if a car was stolen for months, until we did a full inventory. Which I usually had to do a few times a year.
Even if you don't have that responsibility, delay in reporting them stolen lessens the chance of recovering them. Do the numbers, decide whether to put money into better surveillance or more insurance.
@@colep5867he skipped over the part that I would argue is the actual negligence, the stolen titles. A stolen vehicle is without a clean title, still a stolen vehicle. But allowing someone to steal titles and alter them to be used without consequence is negligence. The titles should be registered and traceable, after all that is their entire purpose, and yet none of the ones here apparently were. A state allowing someone to steal and then forge official state documents, and then another state not been able to check to see if those documents are legitimate with a simple digital lookup should be just as if not more negligent than someone having their goods stolen without noticing.
There ya go -- that's the phrasing I was looking for. For a "Ford is Negligent" case to succeed, there would need to be a clear demonstration that Ford had a _duty_ to count its cars. I think that's why Steve was so soft-pedal on the "That's who I'd sue, but it's not a slam dunk" angle.
I finished with Ford years ago, over design shortcomings of the 1998 E-150 Van. Looks like their connection with reality has only become more remote. I'm not surprised.
There should be a federal database for manufacturer's cars until they are ready to sell. A title search should come up as "not saleable" until it's sent to the dealer for initial sale.
AZ does have 3rd party MVD companies. They started really coming up about 10 years ago, because any trip to the actual MVD offices here were at least an hour wait, any day/time guaranteed.. It was ridiculous. Emissions testing is just as bad here also. AZ was also probably targeted because truck prices here are outrageously high, compared to the rest of the country.
Criminals will always find a way. I was at a party around 17 or 18 years ago. I heard 2 guys talking. ( I got a knack for being able to listen to more than one conversation and hear it). The one guy was talking to the other guy who's father builds custom motorcycles. The guy asked him how they title them. He explained they buy frames. They build the bike. They then stamp a VINon the frame and they send in the paperwork to create a Certificate Of Origin. He said they stamp frames and sell them all the time for ppl to build custom bikes. The one guy said he had a new Harley but didn't have any paperwork for it. Needed a frame with a title. He wanted to put the parts on the new frame and make a bike. Guy said no problem. They don't get so specific on custom bike titles as they do factory made bikes. He even said he could inspect it for him after it's done. Get some paperwork trail started. I walked away after that before they noticed I could hear them. The bike shop is gone now. The city bought the land and built something there. Seen the guys dad on the news talking about it.
At first brush (meaning there may be issues with this that I haven't thought of yet), an inventory control method that would be able to flag both cars missing from a lot and cars that neverade it to a lot, that could be implemented with current technology is put some sort of inventory control barcode (or QR code, or similar) on the roof of the vehicles. This can be printed on the protective vehicle wrap film that is put on the vehicles already. This bar code could be read by a camera at the exit of the factory and at the entrances and exits of the storage lots. And at the storage lots they could have a drone fly a pattern over the lot daily (at least) reading the barcodes and locations of all the cars. This would also be a benefit to the drivers picking up vehicles to know exactly where in the lot (as of the latest drone scan) the specific vehicles they need to pick up are. (Reducing the pain point mentioned by another comment.) This is very doable with today's technology and only requires the will to do it. The equipment costs probably wouldn't be noticed in the yearly/quarterly budgets.
Lawsuits involving more than a dozen parties have been filed over the sales of stolen vehicles that had clean titles and no record of theft. Victims are suing other victims. Lawsuits have been filed in Maricopa County, Arizona, courts in February, March and April among title companies, car dealers and auction houses. One of the plaintiffs is VT Motors, which is also owned by Berkshire Hathaway. Another plaintiff is Metro Auto Auction, against Brown and others. They're all suing and countersuing because companies have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars after buying and reselling new Ford F-150s that turned out to be stolen
OMG, I have bought Ford/Lincoln products all my life as my dad and Uncles loved Mercury in the 50's and 60's! The best car I learned to drive on was a 1964 Ford Custom 500, 2 door, with heater, and the Ford automatic transmission! (C4 at the time), and no power steering, but a bench seat in the front an back.
I would say I am shocked, but the state of NC "lost" my Van. Literally told me that the VIN didn't exist after it was registered for 3 years. Strangely they did not stop collecting taxes on it, and the bank still wanted to get paid for the non-existent vehicle I was driving around, I simply had a nightmare getting and keeping my tag current. Finally, after buying out the lease, I was able to get the vehicle properly registered and titled, but it involved many trips to the DMV and a lot of work to re-establish the paper trail. As an extra F-U, the state sent me a bill for "gap taxes"......
This stuff happened all the time, fake titles, rolling back odometers, etc. About 30 years ago I worked at a place where a guys car was stolen, about two months later I saw it on a local lot for sale.
Here is some information concerning Ford f150's. Look online, Kentucky Speedway 2020-2021, this is when there was a big chip shortage. You will find pictures and news reports about all of the trucks thatwere being stored down here at Kentucky Speedway. So, I don't know if any of them down here came up missing but I do know that there were thousands of them down here because it was all over the news down here. Anyhow check it out if you are interested.
My Mom & Dad worked for Pontiac (motors) from the early 50's up until the 70's. One day in 1972 John DeLorean came to town and Dad and him stopped by (The Blue Parrot?) for a few drinks..... That ended up with them stealing police prepped cars from the back lot at Pontiac and chasing each other through Detroit. John hit a patch of black ice and slid into my dad forcing his car into a telephone pole breaking my dad's back. John felt awful.... When my dad got the body cast cut off they threw him a party, when they threw him in the pool he broke his neck because of the atrophy from being in a body cast, John felt guilty about that too. He ended up offering my dad a job with DMC but my dad liked retirement too much.
In the late 1990's, blank NH licenses were stolen. They stopped issuing for 2 weeks while the State got new blanks. Got license in 95, had to get "new" one in 96.
I recently had business at dmv where they have facial recognition (I was told that I was recognized by facial recognition when I asked the clerk if she wanted my ton of endless required paperwork I brought that they always asked previously). so, I m guessing had to do titles at private title work co., not state dmv
In early 2000s, my husband bought a Ford Escape. I didn't agree, but we were separated at the time, and he got "salty". It spent the first two weeks at the dealership because of problems, and he wasn't even able to drive it! (Wish we had known Steve!) The repair costs over the years were quite high, because it was expensive to repair and had various problems, every year. It was good for our 500 mile road trips, but the repairs were horrible. We agreed "never again Ford". We replaced it with a 2017 Subaru Crosstrek. So far, only regular maintenance type repairs.
The VINs clearly need a "hasn't been sold from OEM yet" status that they're registered as before they physically roll of the line in the plant. Then as they're sold to a dealership, that could be reflected in the VIN status, as opposed to having to detect that they've gone missing, and then reporting them as stolen - there's a lot of other states the car can be in before it ever gets to the state of "stolen". Start the tracking in a national DB way sooner entirely fixes the problem. This is not very complicated stuff
This information is basically already given. Look at a carfax report The first event listed is the day the vehicle is shipped to a dealer Second event is the the dealer received the vehicle And the third event is when the vehicle is sold. Fourth event is the state issued a title for the vehicle None of these events were ever processed so a carfax on these trucks should show a title transfer from Georgia to Arizona as the first event the trucks ever had. That alone should raise questions, especially when some dealers had multiple of these trucks
Place an AirTag, without a speaker, in each vehicle that is stored - $25.00. Track all vehicles that leave the lot. Recover the AirTag from each vehicle on the date the vehicle is sold and recycle the AirTag.
I think if someone official (eg. a dealer or automaker, etc) doesn't report a stolen vehicle within a certain time (say 30 days), it should cease to be their property. I mean, we have limits for everything else - like rights to sue, property lines, even criminal charges - why not this?
Good analysis. And to what extent does Georgia have for not alerting other DMVs that titles with certain serial numbers (which appear on their blank titles) are stolen?
I'd be interested in finding out just what the documentation is on each vehicle going into the lot and each vehicle going out. If vehicles are being stolen without Ford Motor's knowledge, there's a BIG HOLE in the documentation procedure somewhere. If not already done, they need a complete audit of the lots and the documentation procedure.
My wife' boss bought with cash a used 1yr old fully loaded Chevy Suburban with less than 800 miles on it at a huge auto auction. Two months later the FBI took the vehicle, arresting him as part of a auto theft ring. Around noon the next day he was free and clear but out the vehicle, the money spent, and the lawyer fees.
I watch a channel off and on across seas about this company that put trackers in vehicles, bikes, tractors, other expensive construction equipment, etc. it is amazing how they can find them when they are stolen and quite often the cops are very little help and don't want to get involved in prosecuting the person unless it is a slam dunk case for them.
I'm in Northern Indiana and buy the fort Wayne plant GM there's probably a gazillion trucks still sitting in a lot adjacent to the factory. I would also see lots of vehicles brand new pickups just sitting randomly on businesses grass property because there was nowhere to put them. RVs during covid-19 way tons of them were produced to meet demand but they had to put them somewhere.
