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| Car Being Towed |
A 17-year-old high school senior in Los Angeles says a car deal he checked from every angle still cost him his college savings — $58,000 he had saved over four years — after the car was repossessed over a lien nobody told him existed. Now he is seeking answers from Carvana and the DMV, and his story is a warning for anyone buying a used car from a private seller.
Arrod Berjis, who enjoys working on vehicles, found a 2019 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG listed on Autotrader. The price was $58,000, which he believed was under market value, and the plan made sense to him: repair the car, enjoy it, then sell it for a profit and add the money to his college fund. Before handing over payment, he did what careful buyers are told to do — he went to the DMV with the seller to verify the title was legitimate.
An Online Deal That Looked Legitimate
According to Berjis, a DMV clerk told him multiple times that there was no lien on the vehicle and that everything was clear. The title he received from the DMV listed no lien holder, and neither did the Carfax report he obtained. With those two checks coming back clean, he completed the purchase and spent the next three months repairing the car.
The plan was working. After three months of work, Berjis said he had lined up a potential buyer willing to pay $75,000 — a $17,000 profit over what he paid, money earmarked for college. Then, the night before the planned sale, the car disappeared.
The Car Vanished
Believing the car had been stolen, Berjis contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. Officers directed him to a towing company, where he learned the truth: the vehicle had not been stolen at all. It had been repossessed. According to Berjis, the tow company told him, "We were ordered to take this car by Carvana."
That is where the clean title story fell apart. A lienholder — Carvana, in this account — still had a claim on the car, even though no lien appeared on the DMV title or the Carfax report Berjis had checked. Three months after he bought the car, both the money and the car were gone.
The DMV's Answer: The Paperwork was "Overlooked"
When Berjis returned to the DMV seeking answers, he said the original title was taken from him. What a DMV representative told him, in his account, was that sometimes when a title is transferred, the previous paperwork can be overlooked — a lien can be released, and a DMV title can be issued to a buyer, but that title is void and invalid because of the mistake. Berjis summed up the explanation himself: "Mistake or potentially fraud."
That distinction matters, and it is unresolved. The DMV declined to comment because the matter is an open investigation, and Carvana had not responded to requests for comment at the time of the report. Nothing here is proven about what happened inside the DMV or at Carvana — what is documented is Berjis's account, the repossession, and the two institutions' silence so far.
LA has a 'Fake Seller' Problem
The LAPD is investigating, but Berjis said the case has a built-in dead end: the seller's identity and documents ultimately turned out to be fake, which limits what investigators can do. That is the classic shape of a title scam — a seller who does not really exist, paperwork that looks real enough to pass a routine check, and a buyer left holding the loss when the real lienholder comes to collect.
Berjis said his hope now is straightforward: Carvana will either return the vehicle or compensate him for the $58,000 he lost. Without that money, he fears his college plans will be delayed. "It was a big amount of money that I had saved up over the last four years of high school, which was, you know, all meant to go to the goal of going to college, and so that was the end game for it and it will definitely delay that and hold it back," he said.
How to Protect Yourself From a Title Scam
Berjis did more checking than most buyers do, and it still was not enough — which is exactly why this case is worth learning from. Here is what scam watchers recommend before you pay for a used car from a private seller.
First, do not rely on a single title document. Check the title, a vehicle history report, and the state DMV or lien records independently, and be suspicious if anything does not match. A freshly transferred title deserves extra scrutiny, since this case shows a transfer can apparently wash a lien off the paper without clearing it in reality. Second, verify the seller, not just the car: match the seller's government ID to the name on the title, and be wary if the seller rushes you, refuses to meet at the DMV, or cannot produce consistent paperwork. Third, treat an under-market price as a yellow flag, not a bargain — scammers price cars to make buyers move fast and skip checks. Fourth, pay through a traceable method and get a signed bill of sale with the VIN, price, seller's full name, and the statement that the title is lien-free. And if you have already been scammed, report it to local police, your state DMV's investigations unit, the FTC, and the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, and keep every document, message, and receipt.
The hardest lesson in this story is that even the official check can fail. Berjis went to the DMV with the seller and was told repeatedly that everything was clear. If a deal involves a recently transferred title, a seller you cannot fully verify, or a price that seems too good, slow down and get a second, independent check before the money moves. A few extra days of verification is cheap compared to $58,000 and a college fund.
As of the report, the DMV has not commented beyond citing its open investigation, Carvana has not responded, and the LAPD investigation continues. Berjis is still waiting for the car or the money — and for an answer about how a title the DMV itself issued could turn out to be void.
