I am not hiding anything. Feel free to contact any law enforcement agency. I bought (not stole) this car with a California Title from a guy who bought it from someone else who bought it from a tow yard. Hawaian Tropic has not produced a single bit of paper work. Nor, with all of his Rent Free time, has he considered to come to California get his documents? out of some box at his grandparents house and provide any proof of anything!? So while he is rent free, I pay my rent. I have to!
So all you all keep blowing your so called Porsches. I will be happy to stuff any of you in a Thing.

According to the address listed on the title, King lives in Oakland, CA

That's a double

post the vin # stamped in the front and rear trunks. that should clear everything up.

k

Not hidding anything ????

You have yet to post your name on anything you have written -
As all can clearly see my name is at the bottom of each post I write -

You have been asked to provide documentation and contact information for ALL to see - you have failed to do it -
You are the only person on this board that is attempting to sell what appears to be stolen property -

How Aaron currently lives is irrelevant of whether you are in possession of his property -
Whether you bought this car or not is also irrelevant to whether it is stolen property -
Why should I or anyone else on this board come to your defense when all you can provide is hearsay ?

As a result, unless you start acting like a responsible adult, you will be treated like a criminal -

Do you wear knee pads? from Dick!

You are about to enter the hailstorm, asswipe -

Just ban the jerkoff and be done with it... Nothing getting acomplished here.

Hey! It appears someone discovered "spell check" & "grammar check"! Now if they only made an "ethics/morals check"...

Perhaps someone can put a name to the face...

Click to view attachment

So who's the guy in the photo? Is that supposed to be 'Smokey'?

anyone want to bet that smokey is his dogs name?

Smokey and a bandit... how appropriate...

When was that craigslist ad from? The second owner of the car after it was stolen was a guy named "King Oruruo" in Oakland.

Here's the info I've got... If any of this pops out at any of you guys let me know...

The chronological list of past owners is:

1. Salayfo Smith, 35th st. Oakland
2. King Oruruo, Oakland
3. Mike Bench, Saratoga
4. Ed Holley, Campbell (current owner)

The car was towed by:

R. Lance & Sons; 6776 Patterson Pass Rd, Livermore, CA 94550, (925) 245-8884

And the lein sale was handled by

Pat's Lein Service; 1542 Holmes St Ste D, Livermore, CA 94550-6008, (925) 455-0932

Sounds like a good compromise to me. He should make some money on the car. He bought it legally with valid california title. Why not step up and make the transaction?

Sounds like a piss-poor compromise to me.

A man's property was stolen... that property has resurfaced. Since he wasn't compensated by insurance, he deserves to have it returned.

Let "Smokey" take it up with the guy HE bought the car from, rather than trying to make a buck on a fellow man's misfortune.

Also, again thank you guys for the support, but to be honest flaming the guy isn't going to accomplish anything except maybe get him pissed off, and I'd rather deal with someone who feels like they're being treated fairly. I don't think he's going to change, and that's fine, but I'd rather make sure everything that happens happens with everyone's well-being in mind.

He's asked why I don't go to CA, and it's because at this point it wouldn't add anything to the situation, and I'd rather not spend $600 on plane fare. I do have time, but $600 is still a substantial chunck of change. When this goes to court I'll be there in a suit, but until then I'm content to have the law run it's course.

What I'm hoping will happen is that after this goes to trial I'll get my car back and he'll be left having to squeeze his $2k out of the tow truck company, or Oakland PD, or whoever made the mistake. He could've gotten it out of me - I'd offered straight up - but after this run-around I'm really just over it.

Thanks again for the support,

Aaron

Sounds like a "man" abandoned his vehicle. Car left illegally on California streets with Oregon plates and not properly registered. It may have or may have not been stolen. Just because car was reported as stolen doesnt mean it was.

Smokey bought the car with Valid California title. He isnt obligated to do anything legally or morally.

hail to the wonders of the internet ...

here's your man:
http://www.kingknows.com/contact.html

Andy

Ad was posted in Los Angeles. Found on Craigs today. Similar ad also in Austin

Grant -
I have to respectfully disagree -
Aaron would at that point be out $7500 for a car he paid about $4500, IIRC -
Remember, the car still should be his no matter what errors the DMV made -
Smokey the bandit should go back to the seller he bought the car from, and recover his losses. Each buyer/seller would have to do the same, all the way back to the tow company -
After the attitude he has shown on this board, he should have to go to the trouble if he wanted to break even -

Also, Pat's lien service I would suspect be required by the state to be bonded/insured - There is also the option to go after them -

Again, just because Smokey has a title does not mean that he owns the car -
The current title is not in his name -

and you would know that for certain how exactly?


lay down the crack pipe and slowly step away from that crystal ball ...
Andy

Shouldn't we "armchair" detective be tracking down Salayfo Smith as the first "buyer" after it was stolen?

(google shows nothing).

yes, but "King Oruruo" may remember who he bought the car from ...

2nd in line could be good enough.
Andy

I don't agree that he should make any money. If that's your opinion than we disagree and that's OK.

My sense of ethics says that if you find something that doesn't belong to you, you give it back. If he found my car, then the ethical thing would be to give it back in exchange for any money he'd put into it. That's what I'd offered. Anything other than that just seems exploitive.

Aaron

google doesn't, but peoplefinder does!

SMITH, SALAYFO S, OAKLAND, CA, AGE 60
http://www.peoplefinders.com/Summary.asp?l...p;x=31&y=12

Andy

Finally! Thanks Man!

As of a week ago I'm also in the process of tracking down Salayfo Smith. I've tried calling all the numbers and have asked friends in Oakland to go knock on the doors. It's definitely the guy as the 35th st. address is the one that the car was registered to.

$9.95 on peoplefinder.com gets this:

Past addresses:

925 90th Ave , OAKLAND, CA 94603
8731 Mountain Blvd , OAKLAND, CA 94605
8761 Mountain Blvd , OAKLAND, CA 94605
709 35th St , OAKLAND, CA 94609 (this is the one it was registered to)
1923 90th Ave , OAKLAND, CA 94603
6717 Mokelumne Ave , OAKLAND, CA 94605

DOB: 09/01/1946

Past phone numbers:

(510) 430-3037
(510) 553-0337
652-3397
(510) 654-3602

None of this, however, has any bearing on my dealings with the current owner.

I'm pretty sure if you read all past posts it is stated by the "A" man himself. Both sides of this story are so full of holes that I would go with legal ownership if I were a judge.

..and you know we dont use crack in Santa Cruz mountains. I have stepped away from my fortune telling cards.

Also, I've made it clear that I didn't leave it on the street: I left it in the care of a friend who parked it on the street across from his house. It had Oregon plates on it because I bought it from CAMP914 in Portland, Oregon. I registered it in CA as soon as I brought it down, but I liked the way the Oregon plates looked (and they kept me from getting at least one speeding ticket from a CHP who didn't want to deal with out-of-state paperwork) and since they were still valid I left them on.

I did the same thing with my Caddy - the license plate said "VEY ZMER" and hadn't been registered since 1987, but all the paperwork on that car was up to date and it wasn't until I got to Louisianna, after being pulled over a few times, that a cop asked me to change the plates.

If there are any holes in the story you need patched up, just ask. I think the series of events is pretty cut and dry, but there's ambiguity as to who's currently responsible.

Gee why were you NOT in the process to get all your documents together to proof and get over to Cali to resolve Your problem!
Surf to good on the Islands?
I mean really man! Come clean with what the cops told you!

While the spell checking is marginally better and punctuation still non-existant... did he actually say "Cali"?

Retro might be back... but there are still limits!

So you are admitting that the Cops or Tow Company, Lien Company did not notifiy you that the car was being liened because the Oregon plate was a different person. Therefore they sent a lien letter out to that person, not you. And this is because you liked the way the plate LOOKED?
Are you kidding me?

If you want to prove your case on 914world Court then scan that California Registration for all to see.

Leaving Oregon plates on the car is an illegal activity which makes you suspect. I moved from Oregon to California and changed my plates according to California DMV code.

Still sounds like you abandoned the car and it was likely towed once before and sold off when you were out of the country. Maybe tow company didnt do proper paperwork or do it legally, but that sounds likely.

Judge K

Sounds remarkably similar to comments we made about a certain prototype, Grant.

Some of us have learned... some... not so much.

Your the one is Alabama! Got to love A/C for 4 straight months!

When I registered the stolen vehicle report I gave them the Oregon plates, the CA plates, and the CA registration information. Obviously this was enough because they registered the car as a stolen vehicle and it was picked up by the CHP as such.

The problem is that when the CHP picked it up, they didn't go to the SV report, they looked to the current DMV registrant, which wouldn't have been me under any circumstance since it had been re-registered twice.

Yep Original "owners" have some similarities. LOL!

But when CHP picked up the car, it had not been reported stolen yet. They imponded the car because the driver had a suspended licence. Correct?
And this is how it came to a tow yard, with Oregon plates! ANd your so called friend was helping you store this beauty! How is he or she not involved with this Oregon plated machine?

If a freind trusted their car with me and then car went missing I would report it stolen immediately. Wonder why it wasnt reported stolen by the "Freind".

CHP pulled the car over 2 months after I'd filed the report, and impounded it because there was a Department of Justice stolen vehicle hold on the car. That's when CHP filed the vehicle as "recovered".

I don't know if it still had my plates on it or if it had been issued new plates at the DMV, but that's irrelevant as the DOJ uses the VIN to track stolen cars.

To put an end to any doubt of my claim, here's a scan of my registration dated 4/8/05, 6 days after I bought it from CAMP.

As for my friend, he might be involved, as might Salayfo Smith and King and Pat's Lein Service, all the way up to the current owner... All of these people might have something to do with it, and I'm working with law enforcement to follow up on each one of those leads outside of this forum.

This is an open book as far as I'm concerned, and all I'm interested in is getting my car back.

Thank you all again for the support. If anyone has any additional advice please let me know... I'll keep you all updated if anything positive happens, and if you have any questions don't hesitate to post or contact me.

Aaron

I don't know how necessary these are, but here are scans (1) (2) (3) of my passport with stamps showing the following:

9/6/05: Left Honduras
9/24/05: Entered Colombia
10/3/05: Left Colombia
10/5/05: Entered Panama
10/19/05: Entered Costa Rica
11/2/05: Entered USA

Any gaps are because I was sailing and it can take a few weeks to get from country to country, especially when you shred sails in a gale like we did trying to leave Honduras. If necessary I'm sure I can dig up zarpes (sailing vessel documents) by calling the various ports.

The car was registered on 10/28/05, while I was hiking up volcanoes in the jungle.

I hope this puts to rest any idea that the car was not mine or I had anything to do with some kind of scam. No insurance money was ever claimed, no one benefited here aside from the people who stole the car.

The situation sucks, and if anyone has anything additional to add to it then great, but I'm going to try to keep the issue off the board unless something productive is brought up. The seller feels entitled to profits, I disagree, and a 3rd party is going to have to make that decision.

So they never arrested the driver of a "stolen" vehicle? I would think they would have.

I think everything sounds like you are very truthful in what you are saying.I feel bad for Smokey, but he needs to see that the facts lead up to the car still being yours rightfully. I really hope this gets worked out for you Aaron.

I'm not sure what they did... I've called the CHP myself to ask about the circumstances and they've said I need to go through the ATTF. Andy Cosgrove, the ATTF CHP officer working on the case, has requests in for all the documents pertaining to the original registration of the car to Salayfo Smith, the recovery and impounding of the car, and the subsequent lein sale.

I don't know if they arrested the guy, and I'm waiting on documents that were requested weeks ago to tell me that.

You don't know if they arrested the guy?
So the car was reregisterd 4 days before you reenterd the US. You file a stolen car report with the police. How come they did not go after the guy who registered the car on 10/28/05? Or find his name, address etc. Couldn't you have followed that to recovery?

Please tell what Andy Cosgrove told you?