Yep, and I reported it again this morning. Can't believe eBay isn't doing anything about it.
I‘m certainly no lawyer but don’t think that he is doing anything explicitly illegal. Adding the VIN to the car as a branded-title rebody many more be illegal in some states also, but that is tricky water with almost no legitimate reward.
In this case, buyer knows what they are getting, and what the implications may be. The goal here should be to protect the *next buyer in line from a VIN swapped. Prevent a completed transaction. This ebay auction is just noise. If the VIN doesn’t sell on eBay at top dollar, it will sell in a dark alleyway for less. The seller is being opportunistic, but the *buyer is likely planning fraudulent activity.
So the best we can do is get the VIN out there. I have seen about 6 e9 VIN swaps in the past couple of years. Some on low dollar cars, and some on nicely restored top dollar cars. I have only called out one of these cars here (to my regret). Each car is discussed privately with interested forensic e9 enthusiasts. BaT has sold a few, respected auction houses have sold them. It is tricky to call these out because it puts the seller in a bad position if they were a victim of VIN fraud. Also, there could be seemingly nothing wrong with the lovely vehicle that has been kept on the road. I would hazard to guess that most E9/2002
VIN swaps are due to rust mitigation and the desire to keep a chassis rolling. This isn’t the case when you pop a CSL VIN on a 2800 CS, or a tii VIN on a base model ‘02.
I recommend that someone make a post about this on 2002 FAQ to lock the VIN into the internet archive for all time. I need to tread water a bit, but I tend to have little empathy for someone who buys a classic car without researching the car before hand. A 60yo enthusiast has had 25 years to learn to navigate the internet. Someone like myself has been using the internet since late high school. Younger memebers do not know life
without data at thumbs-reach. If you do
the work aka (google search and light browsing), it is likely you won’t be a victim.
I harken to post 1-20 when I bought my rust bucket. I joined the forum, I posed the “should I
buy it” question. I quickly received doomsday warnings by forum elders. At that point my subsequent purchase was based on arrogance and naive optimism,
and not pure ignorance.
