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This reminds me of a story-
About six years ago I was looking to buy an old motorcycle to fix up for a winter project. I found one for sale in a newspaper ad, an old Kawasaki 500 twin. Looked OK, owner said it ran rough and had some bad scratches and broken turn signals and wanted $300. Sounded good to me.
I drove 2 hours away from where I lived at the time to pick it up, got there late at night, guy was cool, had a lot of other cool bikes. He only had an old, out of state title for it in someone else's name. No current title. No bill of sale. I totally believed the guy's story about how he got it from a buddy who lived in IL- guy definitely wasn't a thief, but I wasn't so sure about the guy *before him*.
So I took the VIN and quick called the highway patrol. Got an operator and said "I'm looking to buy a motorcycle but it has a shady history and I want to make sure it hasn't been reported stolen in the past." The officer on the phone said "We can't give you that information sir." ...
I was like.. "You can't tell me a 'YES' or 'NO' on whether or not it has been reported stolen?" and they said "Only the owner can get that info" ... "I think the owner would know if it was stolen, I'm about to buy this thing and I want to make sure it's not a crime, how is that a problem?" "It is not information we can give out, sir..." on and on ..
So I got cold feet and didn't buy it. I regret it, cause it would have been a fun project even if I never registered it.
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