ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — An Orange County mother is out ten thousand dollars after she learned she was the victim of a vehicle cloning scheme.
The car she purchased and legally registered turned out to be a stolen vehicle out of South Carolina, and Sanford Police say they are actively investigating the crime.
According to a Sanford Police report, the man who sold the car is still selling vehicles on Facebook Marketplace.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office says the scheme came to light after a system used by the DMV flagged possible fraud.
Marissa Crown says she purchased her 2016 Hyundai Sonata in December of 2024.
“It was listed for $6,000. And he said since I was pregnant and it was Christmas, he would give me a good deal,” said Crown.
The single mother told Channel 9 she found the seller on Facebook Marketplace and negotiated over the price before eventually handing over $4,500 dollars in exchange for the car’s title.
She registered the vehicle with the state’s DMV and spent the next year and a half driving the car without any issues, until the Orange County Sheriff’s office showed up at her door on April 22nd.
“They asked me if it was my car. I told them yes. And they said they thought I had been a victim of fraud,” said Crown.
According to the Sanford Police department, Orange County deputies discovered the car was stolen from South Carolina. The Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) on her car’s dashboard had been replaced with a fake number. Police say Crownwas the victim of an elaborate vin fraud scheme.
Joe Lopez, a retired FHP trooper explained re-VINned cars can be almost impossible to detect. Criminals forge documents to match fake VINs which hide the fact a car is actually stolen.
“It’s a business, organized crime,” said Lopez, “Look at it as identity theft, but you’re stealing the identity of another vehicle.”
After Orange County deputies confirmed the VIN had been swapped with a fake, they confiscated Crown’s car on the spot.
“That’s how I get to work. I clean houses for a living. I have a one-year-old. I’m a single mom. And I just lost everything in that moment,” said Crown.
Orange County deputies say “re-VINning” a stolen vehicle isn’t new, but they believe platforms like Facebook Marketplace have made the scheme more popular.
The number of cloned VINs have more than doubled in Florida from 30 in 2019 to 75 in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Motor Vehicle Title Information System.
Crown says in additional to purchasing the car for $4500 she had to spend more than $5000 fixing the vehicle. Experts say she is not likely to see any of that returned. Crown said she is hoping Sanford Police are able to make an arrest and is sharing her story so others can be on the lookout.
“The damage is done. But there’s people that I can stop getting scammed now,”said Crown.
A GoFundMe has now been set up to help Crown by a new car.
You can find Crown’s GoFundMe Here.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office shared the below tips to make sure you are not taking advantage of:
- Consumers should take any car they are interested in buying to a licensed mechanic that has the equipment necessary to check. Dealerships would also be able to do this.
- Consumers can run the VIN number through CARFAX or other public resources, and make sure that the description on that service matches the VIN on the car.
- If the doorframe VIN does not match the VIN in the dashboard, that’s a huge red flag, be aware!
- Some manufacturers are now etching the VIN numbers on windows, because in the event those cars are stolen, they would have to replace all the windows.
- Take a photo of the individual you are buying from AND a photo of their driver’s license.
- If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. The sheriff’s office says they have heard of people buying cars worth $50k or $60 K for $10K or less, and often, those are stolen vehicles with fraudulent VIN numbers.
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