Toronto man unknowingly buys stolen $60,000 truck from dealership

A Toronto man says he purchased a 2020 Ford F-150 truck from a dealership last summer that turned out to be stolen.

"I would never have expected to have bought a stolen vehicle from a large car dealership,” Derek Crocker told CTV News Toronto.

Crocker said he bought the truck from a Mazda dealership in the Toronto area for about $60,000 last June.

Six months later, he got into an accident. When the truck was being repaired at the body shop, Crocker said the wrong replacement parts were constantly being ordered.

"When they ordered parts using the vehicle identification number (VIN), the bumper was coming back chrome instead of black and the grill chrome instead of black. Things weren't lining up," he said.

That’s when Crocker did a Google search using his VIN, and found another truck in the United States that had the exact same number.

"I found another truck with that VIN in Utah for sale, and it had the same VIN as my truck,” Crocker said.

Further investigation revealed Crocker’s truck was reported stolen in Durham Region, and that its VIN had been changed so it could be used as an unsuspecting trade-in at the dealership.

"We found out the vehicle was stolen in June of 2022," Crocker said.

Once the truck was shown to be stolen, it had to be returned to the original owner's insurance company, and Crocker no longer had a pick-up truck.

Sandra Lemaitre with Mazda Canada’s Public Affairs and Corporate Communications office said it was an unfortunate situation and that Mazda was reviewing its processes.

"It's a really unfortunate case. Really it's criminal activity, and it has multiple victims,” Lemaitre said.

According to Lemaitre, the dealership had no idea it was selling a stolen vehicle.

"The VIN was cloned. That’s when they take a VIN from a legal vehicle and use it to hide a stolen vehicle," Lematire said.

Mazda Canada said the dealership refunded the entire cost of the vehicle to Crocker, including past loan payments and provided him with a loaner vehicle.

The Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council (OMVIC), which oversees vehicle sales in Ontario, said consumers add another layer of protection to their vehicle – new or used – if they purchase it from an OMVIC-registered dealer.

"If they purchase a stolen vehicle from an OMVIC registered dealer, they would be entitled to make a claim to our compensation fund,” OMVIC CEO Maureen Harquail said.

Crocker is relieved to get his money back but calls it a frustrating ordeal.

“I wanted to warn people, that just because you buy from a dealer, it doesn't mean everything is always going to be ok," he said.

Mazda Canada said criminals are getting more sophisticated, and it plans to examine its processes to try and prevent this from happening again.