Tegger wrote:
> "Pszemol" <Pszemol@PolBox.com> wrote in
> news:gs1h3j.130.0@poczta.onet.pl:
>
>> "Leftie" <No@Thanks.net> wrote in message
>> news:hYPDl.12903$FR3.4364@newsfe04.iad...
>>> honda.lioness@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> On Apr 9, 5:16 pm, Leftie <N...@Thanks.net> wrote:
>>>>> I got a refund from Carfax when I bought my '95 Civic EX. It
>>>>> was
>>>>> listed as one owner when it fact I was buying it from the third
>>>>> owner. They snidely asked me if I didn't think the report was worth
>>>>> *anything* and I replied that since I couldn't trust the info, no.
>>>>> So they refunded my fee.
>>>> How did you find out it had had three owners before you?
>>>>
>>>> I hear autocheck.com is better than carfax.com
>>>
>>> The guy I bought it from had bought it from his uncle three years
>>> earlier. Same last name, different first. The owner's manual had the
>>> name of a third person written in it, and the kid (a college student
>>> moving back out West - I got a good deal because it was a risky sale
>>> but the car was rust-free and under book, with a new clutch and
>>> transmission) confirmed that his uncle had bought it slightly used.
>>> So Carfax had no excuse for calling it a "One Owner!" car.
>> The question is - how carfax can know if you buy a car from family
>> relative and do not change the plates or pay taxes?? People often
>> avoid doing paperwork to save themselves the money related to
>> the name flip. So if he did not re-register the car after the
>> transaction within the family, carfax was not wrong saying 1-owner.
>
>
>
> If one family member "buys" the car from another member but never changes
> the legal ownership, it is NOT a legal ownership transfer. The car is still
> legally owned by the person shown on the ownership papers, whom the family
> now considers the "previous" owner.
>
> The family may consider the car "owned" by the current "owner", but the
> government and insurance company most certainly will not accept that as
> legal if the legal papers are in the "previous" owner's name.
>
> If there is in fact a LEGAL transfer of ownership, the the ownership papers
> will reflect that fact, showing the name of the new owner. This may also
> entail tax payments, new plates and other such. Some jurisdictions (such as
> mine) waive the sales tax when a car is sold from one family member to
> another, provided a sworn affidavit is made that the car has been
> transferred as a gift, without payment.
>
> However, Carfax must be TOLD of any ownership changes, insurance claims,
> emissions failures, etc. If nobody tells, Carfax doesn't know.
>
>

Who is it who is supposed to "tell" Carfax? I assumed it was Carfax
getting the info from government sources. Otherwise, with only passive
data collection, they have no basis at all to make the claims that they
make.

And just to clarify what should already be clear: the car was
registered under the student's name. It had previously been registered
under his uncle's name. Does anyone really think that Carfax would have
declined to defend their claim if they had any basis to do so...? They
had clearly checked, found that it was indeed a "three owner car!" and
offered only the lame justification that *some* of the information they
provided was true.