Cops get involved in a New Jersey car deal gone wrong, and now the seller’s nowhere to be found as the buyer wants his money back

A New Jersey car dealer says he was blindsided after police confiscated a BMW he had just purchased from another Virginia car dealership, but the comments aren’t exactly sympathetic.

“Imagine that, an auto dealer ripped you off. Welcome to everyone else’s world,” one person wrote under a viral TikTok post from New Jersey dealer George Saliba (@Georgejsaliba). Another added, “When dealers get scammed it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside 😂,” while a third questioned, “How did YOU buy a stolen car without running the VIN?!?”

An interstate car deal and a stolen vehicle

The dispute centers on a BMW X6 that Saliba says he bought roughly 10 days before posting his video. In the TikTok clip, Saliba explains that his dealership purchased the SUV “dealer to dealer” from Prime Motors LLC. in Virginia. Shortly after the vehicle arrived on his lot, he says, it was seized by law enforcement.

“We got the car here and the vehicle, the car hit our inventory, hit our lot. It was then confiscated by the police because this was a stolen vehicle,” Saliba said in the video.

But, according to Saliba, the selling dealership “had no record or knowledge” of the vehicle being stolen. Still, he argues that industry norms require the seller to unwind the deal.

“Typically, what happens in this situation is the selling dealer is supposed to buy the car back from me cause they didn’t know it was stolen,” he said. “I get it, it’s a mistake. You know, they made a mistake, but they have still not purchased the car back from me.”

Saliba reached out, no response

In his post, Saliba claims the selling dealer has stopped responding and is pushing the matter toward litigation. “They wanna go the legal route and all that stuff, and I don’t really wanna go that route. But no one’s responding back to us,” he said.

Frustrated, Saliba tagged the Virginia attorney general and the dealership in his TikTok, urging viewers to pressure the seller to “do the right thing and take the car back from me.”

“No doubt these kids work hard. This is probably their first mistake,” he said, asking his audience to help him out.

Could a VIN swap be to blame?

Cases of stolen vehicle sales sometimes involve what’s known as a VIN swap or VIN cloning scheme. In such scams, criminals take the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) from a legally registered car and attach it to a stolen vehicle of the same make and model. The fraudulent VIN can pass basic database checks if the legitimate vehicle is still on the road elsewhere.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) warns that VIN cloning has become increasingly sophisticated, allowing stolen vehicles to be resold to unsuspecting buyers, including dealerships. Under the federal Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention Act and related statutes, knowingly trafficking in stolen vehicles or altered VINs can carry serious criminal penalties.

However, even when a buyer lacks knowledge that a car is stolen, the legal principle of “void title” generally applies: a thief cannot pass good title to anyone. That means an innocent purchaser — including a dealer — typically does not gain legal ownership of a stolen vehicle. In many states, the rightful owner or their insurer can reclaim the car once it is identified.

For dealerships, that often triggers a civil dispute over who ultimately absorbs the financial loss. Dealer-to-dealer transactions are usually governed by purchase agreements and state commercial law, including provisions under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) addressing warranties of title.

Saliba has not publicly detailed what checks were performed before the purchase, and Prime Motors LLC has not responded publicly to the allegations in the TikTok. For now, Saliba waits for the legal process to play out, as his TikTok following enjoys watching a dealership navigate a tricky situation.