TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The Polk County Sheriff’s Office has confiscated a 2018 Camaro ZL1 that was sold by Carvana 17 months ago.
Records show the car was reported stolen in Texas six months before it was sold in Florida.
The buyer, Roger Johnston, says the discovery has left him in a financial mess. Johnston called Better Call Behnken for help unwinding the deal and recovering his money.
Johnston bought the high-end Camaro for a total price of nearly $74,000. He said he rarely drove the car and put only about 1,000 miles on the car before deciding recently to sell the vehicle.
He said he took the car to a local dealer interested in buying it, but it didn’t take long before problems were discovered.
The Vehicle Identification Number, or VIN, shown on the windshield and inside the driver’s door, doesn’t match another VIN found under the hood.
Johnston said when they hooked up the car to an Onboard Diagnostic Computer Scan, they learned the VIN on the hood was the correct one.
The two VINs are the same, except for the last five numbers, and the news got worse. The VIN check showed Johnston’s car was reported stolen out of Texas in July 2022 — six months before he bought it.
“It’s unacceptable,” Johnston said. “For this long, for me to own the car for two years, almost two years, and now it’s gone and they charged me all this money. They should have done their due diligence until they sold it to me. It should never have made it to me.”
Johnston said he called Carvana and reported this to the Polk County Sheriff’s office, which confiscated the car last week. He said Carvana told him they can’t do anything until they have a report from law enforcement.
Making matters more complicated, he said the sheriff’s office told him they didn’t have a report yet because the investigation was new. He said he’s now stuck making payments for the car and car insurance.
After a call from Consumer Investigator Shannon Behnken, the sheriff’s office sent Johnston a copy of an incident report that he could forward to Carvana. Johnston said the dealership said once they have that they will work on a resolution.
Better Call Behnken reached out to Carvana and received this statement.
“In this unusual case, Carvana and our customer were victims of a sophisticated criminal act. Customer experience is our top priority and we are taking steps to make things right for our customer given the unique circumstances. We are also supporting local law enforcement in their investigation, and remain aggressive in our efforts to protect future customers against bad actors.”
A spokesman from the sheriff’s office said they are investigating and will likely return the car to Texas where it was reported stolen. Law enforcement there will take over the investigation and look into how this happened.
