Dealer left me with a car I can't register

[rkasp]

Hi, I live in Massachusetts. I have just bought a car from a local person who presents himself as a dealer. He provided me with the documents (title, RMV-1 form), however, I'm unable to register the car.

First, he didn't fill out the title correctly - no reassignment to me and no signature on the previous one. This was the first visit to RMV which was just loss of time.

I contacted him immediately and made him fill out the title as he should. I thought I'd be able to register the car now. No such luck. Another visit to the RMV in vain. Now the RMV says that they don't have his business's EIN in their database. They refuse to call him to clarify, they just keep saying that his EIN isn't on file and they're unable to process the registration. I also cannot verify the EIN anywhere to see if it's valid because there's no way to do it for free and I don't intend to pay for his faults.

So now I have a car which I can't register and drive and which I keep in a private lot at my own risk because formally it's not allowed in Quincy. My question is: if he keeps wasting time, can I make him take the car back and return the money? He didn't provide me with a correct set of documents to register it! The RMV says that he should have sold me the car as a private person, not as a dealer (because of the EIN which they can't find), but this means that the title is now spoiled and it's his fault (and I don't plan to pass through all these procedures to replace a title with an incorrect reassignment).

So please advise me what can I do in this situation. Is there a way to make him fix the issue (report him to the police, IRS, whatever), or to return the car? I'm really mad at him now because I've been trying to register it for 2 weeks and each time there's a problem. Thank you.

A second thought: is there ANY chance that for some reason the RMV (maybe even this particular one, though they should have a common database) is actually wrong and their database is obsolete? Does it make sense to try to register it in a different RMV? Or report this RMV branch to the Mass DMV or whatever? Or the RMV can't be wrong? I'm just trying to understand how he's working and selling vehicles if he has an invalid EIN???

 

[jbh50]

This same thing is happening to my daughter. I wonder if it's the same dealer.
We have contacted the Better Bus Bureau and the Atty Gen office just today. Have also spoken with the credit union who loaned her the money to buy. You might want to speak to the ombudsman at the RMV, too. He might be able to tell you if the car has a previous lien or is stolen. The more people you have in your corner who are familiar with the situation, the better you'll feel. Though I'm troubled you haven't had any responses to your post until now...

This will likely be a long-ish process, but the crooked dealers hopefully get caught in Massachusetts. We have some pretty tough consumer advocates here. (At least I HOPE we do!)

Check out the case a couple of years ago AG Martha Coakley v. Northampton used car dealer. (Google)

We are ready to call lawyers if consumer agencies can't budge the dealer who swindled my daughter. In the end, that may be our only recourse. Meanwhile, I will have to loan my car to her since she needs it way more than I do! The car she bought sits in her driveway...useless.

Good luck!

 

[FlyingRon]

The BBB is a complete waste of time. It presumes the business wants to resolve the situation. They have no authority to do anything if either of the parties doesn't want to voluntarily comply with their guidance (other than sue over the removal of the BBB trademarks from advertising if they were using them).