Good luck.

I just got off the phone with the police department who essentially said “we really don’t care.”

The story:

Sunday, I see a listing on Craigslist for a 2000 Plymouth Neon with 60,000 miles on it.  ”Fantastic,” I think, “this is a great deal.”

I take the subway then ride my bike out to meet this guy.  He’s friendly, lets me drive the car around a bit, and I agree to buy the car if it checks out at the mechanic.  He waffles a bit about going to the mechanic, but agrees to do so the next day.  I call back two days later, as I didn’t get a call about how it went at the mechanic, and he says he’s been busy and hasn’t gotten the chance.  He’ll take it that day.

Now this morning, he calls me.  He’s sold the car to someone else for 150% of what I was going to pay.  ”You can’t blame me.” he said. “But! I’ve got this other car, a 1998 Ford with 50,000 miles on it.  You can’t beat that, it’s a nicer car than the Neon!”

I mention I’m disappointed about the fact that we had a verbal agreement that he backed out of, since I had stopped looking for other cars.  I say I’ll think about the other car, and hang up.

My phone rings again 2 minutes later.  It’s him again, but he doesn’t say hello.  He must have sat on his phone, since he was having a conversation with his wife.  He talked about a kid who they used to make fun by calling him Ratface behind his back, and then talked about how he picked up this cool Ford last night, and how he needs to fix the windshield, but it should sell soon.

I’m willing to admit that he might like to go to late night car auctions and pick up extremely low mileage ~10 year old cars, but my intuition suggests otherwise.

Due to my suspicions, I called district 2 of the Philadelphia police department, the district where I looked at this car.

I told the above story, and then asked if they could check if either of the above models had been reported stolen recently.  They said they don’t run checks on cars unless they have them in their possession, and, when I asked if there’s any way I can make sure I’m not about to buy a stolen car, she responded “not that I know of.”  She continued: “You listened to a conversation. How credible is that?”

Ah well. Is there anything else I should do, or just hope he gets caught by other means?