do your research folks, almost bought a car with an altered title

Long story short...
Looking to buy a new daily driver, nothing too expensive but something nice
Found a car in my price range that had options i liked.
Its at a very small used car dealer (flag #1)
Dealer seemed "shady" dodged questions, lied about some small stuff (flag #2)
I ask for the title so i can verify the vin and check nicb and carfax.
The title has a "theft brand" , car was reported stolen and recovered. (huge flag #3)
Dealer says he bought it from auction who bought it from insurance company after the theft.
Nicb had no theft record for the car and carfax had no theft record.
Carfax showed it as a salvage vehicle with a salvage title issued from another state. (No salvage title in the current state) (flag on this play lol)
I saw pictures of the car on the auction site and it had damage that the dealer fixed.
I spoke with a detective who works on this kind of stuff, theory is the salvage title was "washed" and a new clean title was issued in a new state when the vehicle changed owners.
I passed on the dealers info, i dont know what if anything will happen to them. I hope some poor sap doesnt buy this car though.

Ive been looking for a car for a few weeks now. Ive never seen the amount of cars i see now with rebuild, salvage and flood titles. Seems like the cars damaged in the hurricane that hit the east coast are now making their way back into the market. I also think insurance companies are "totaling" more cars for what ever reason and those cars make it back for sale with salvage or rebuild titles.

 

Nice investigative work. Ass-pipes like that guy are the reason why car salesmen are so despised.