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‘I Was Almost A Victim:’ Dealership Owner Nearly Buys a Mitsubishi. Then He Looks Under the Windshield

"Everything looked good on paper to the untrained eye."

Dealership owner nearly buys a Mitsubishi. Then he looks under the windshield

Photo by: the_richest_cardealer & BezeVision

Steve Ecker

By: Steve Ecker

Aug 6, 2025 at 5:00am ET

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A car dealership owner says he’s found a new car-selling scam.

Omar Afaneh (@the_richest_cardealer) shares how he discovered the scam. He says he was almost a victim of it.

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“I own a dealership in Jordan and know a lot of the tricks, but this one I haven’t come across before,” Afaneh begins.

He says his father called him about a new Mitsubishi Pajero he’d found. Afaneh grabbed his on-board diagnostics (OBD) reader and went to inspect it. After the initial diagnosis, he believed everything looked good and asked the dealer about the title.

“Yes, clean title from America. I have the title here,” he says the dealer told him.

“Personally, I like to look at the title to confirm that it’s correct with the VIN. Looking at the title, it’s a clean Florida title. Everything looked good on paper to the untrained eye,” Afaneh says.

Here’s where it got dicey.

First, the Mitsubishi Pajero is not sold in the United States. So it doesn’t make much sense that the car would’ve come from the US, like the title purportedly said.

Second, Afaneh struggled to locate the VIN number.

Afaneh opened the driver door to locate the VIN sticker and it wasn’t there. He then went to the front windshield to locate the VIN and failed to find the VIN number again.

“When replacing the windshield they must’ve painted the undershield black to cover up the VIN number,” Afaneh speculates.

By then, Afaneh was skeptical, so he decided to check underneath the car for the VIN. Pajeros are known for having the VIN edged onto their chassis. He says the VIN number was ground off the chassis and was nowhere to be found.

“We looked for a solid 20 minutes and could not find the VIN anywhere, with the dealer himself looking for it,” Afaneh shares.

Then Afaneh checked the title. The title was allegedly clean, but he says it actually belonged to a totally different vehicle.

“I ran the VIN number through CarFax, and it turns out the title belongs to a 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander. The Outlander was exported from Florida to Jordan a few years ago. The car was totaled in Jordan, which wasn’t reported to the title company. The scammers took the title from this car and gave it to the Mitsubishi Pajero,” Afaneh says.

“It didn’t have a VIN, the title and paperwork didn’t match the car. If you come out to Jordan to buy a car, beware of this scam,” he concludes.

Where to Find Your VIN Number

A Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) is a 17-digit code, composed of capital letters and numbers, that uniquely identifies a vehicle. Each number and letter gives specific pieces of information about the vehicle, including the year, make, model, engine size, and manufacturer.

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This VIN number serves as a unique fingerprint for your car. No two vehicles should have the same VIN.

This code standardized mandate took place in 1981, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The VIN number can be found in the following locations of the vehicle:

Stamped on the dashboard near the windshield, on the driver's side of the vehicle
On a plate or sticker on the driver's side door jamb
Stamped on the engine's firewall
Stamped on the Chassis

Additionally, the VIN number is on your insurance card and policy, as well as the vehicle title and registration.

Why Aren’t Mitsubishi Pajeros Sold in the US?

The Mitsubishi Pajero was sold in the US temporarily, but as the Montero.

The Montero was sold in North America for about two decades ending in 2006. The Montero was discontinued when its sales sagged due to high prices, tepid power and an “unsafe” rating from Consumer Reports.

“Consumer Reports rated the 2001 Mitsubishi Montero Limited ‘Not Acceptable’ after it tipped up severely on two wheels during [...] emergency avoidance-maneuver tests,” Rock Crawler reports.

A Rare Scam

As a car dealer himself, Afaneh has presumably seen a wide variety of scams, or is at least aware of them.

Things like title swapping, odometer rollbacks, and falsified vehicle history reports are just some of the ways scammers attempt to target victims.

Afaneh says he’s never seen anything like this, however. In the caption on his TikTok, he calls it “a full blown Car Swap Scam.”

As of this writing, his TikTok has over 72,600 views.

People in the comments agree that walking away from the deal was the right choice.

“First red flag, Florida title on a car that can’t be sold in the US,” one person shared.

“The fact that a vehicle can’t be sold in the states had a Florida title should have been your walk-away moment,” another replied.

What do you think?

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While this occurred in Jordan, a third warned, “They do this in the US too.”

Update July 11: Via TikTok direct message, Afaneh told Motor1*, "I think it’s absolutely despicable that a dealer would be that shady, and attempt to sell a car with no vin number and the wrong papers. I was lucky that I knew what to look for, the person that buys that car won’t be as lucky. I’ve reported the dealership to the property authorities here in Jordan and hopefully they get to him before he sells that car."*

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