If you shop for a used car several months from now, you might want to give the carpet an extra close sniff.
You could be purchasing a dried-out casualty of Hurricane Katrina.
Whether acting as entrepreneurs or scam artists, wholesale car dealers soon will be scouring the ruins of New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama for flood-damaged vehicles. They will obtain the cars for pennies, refurbish them and then sell them to buyers, some of whom won't be told of their purchase's waterlogged history.
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The problem is not necessarily the practice of refurbishing the cars; it is whether the cars are identified as being salvaged.
It begins when insurance companies rule cars a total loss and make settlement payments to dealers or private owners. They, in turn, sell the vehicles cheap at auction, after which the car's title is branded as a "flood" or "salvage" vehicle.
But some opportunists will take those vehicles to different states that don't require the cars to list its previous condition on the title. With its history wiped clean, they are moved again, ending up for sale in places such as Chicago.