‘Blocked’ family misled by New Jersey car flipper, not dealership, in lien release ordeal

A family’s frustrating, hours-long drive to clear a car title issue has shed light on a common, and often illegal, practice in the used-car market: title skipping by independent flippers posing as a legitimate car dealership.

The situation came to light through a Reddit post in which the original vehicle owner described how a family was misdirected to his home after being unable to obtain a lien release needed to title a vehicle they had recently purchased. The family believed they had bought the car from a New Jersey dealership. That, the seller later learned, was not the case.

A car flipper masquerading as a dealer

In an update the Reddit post said, “This was not a dealership. It was a car flipper who put address of a random dealership in NJ, or maybe they work there. I found my car [on] marketplace sold and I now know the guy who sold the car.. it was the same dude that bought a car from me,” the Reddit user wrote. “Alas… I’ll help the family to get a lien release and off they go. I’ll learn from this mistake in the future. Hopefully.”

According to the post, the seller said he had done everything required when he sold the vehicle, including providing the original title in his name and a lien release from the bank. He said he verified in advance that those documents were sufficient for the buyer to obtain a new title.

Problems arose, he wrote, after the intermediary resold the car, allegedly for double the purchase price, without passing along the lien release to the final buyers. When the family tried to contact what they believed was the selling dealership, their calls went unanswered.

“To make matters worse, they blocked the family’s phone number, leaving them unable to contact the dealership,” the seller wrote.

Unhappy buyers on his doorstep

With no response and an unresolved lien issue, the family drove roughly three hours to the address listed on the title — the original seller’s home — hoping he could help. The seller said the family did not speak English fluently and relied on their children to translate. “I am beyond angry at this dealership,” he wrote. “This situation is unacceptable.”

However, commenters familiar with motor vehicle titling issues offered a different explanation. One commenter said the seller likely never dealt with a dealership at all.

“Based on your comments, you didn’t sell your car to a dealership, you sold it to some random guy that is flipping cars by illegally ‘title skipping,’” the commenter wrote, explaining that the flipper likely held onto the signed title and passed it directly to the next buyer without ever registering the vehicle in his own name. According to the comment, the flipper may have used a dealership address “to make himself seem more legit to you, and/or to hide his identity in case he gets caught.”

The commenter added that the dealership at that address “had nothing to do with it” and may have blocked the family only after repeatedly explaining the same thing.

Another Reddit user shared a similar experience, showing how common similar title problems can be. “I was almost on the other end of this,” the commenter wrote, describing a dealer who claimed it could handle an out-of-state registration but never actually secured a new title, later suggesting the buyer track down prior owners to fix the mistake.