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Kicking the tires and looking under the hood are typical steps when people buy a used car. Taking a closer look at the odometer should be part of the regimen, too. Several states are reporting a sizable increase in odometer rollback fraud. Chuck Quirmbach of member station WUWM in Milwaukee reports.

CHUCK QUIRMBACH, BYLINE: A few months ago, Dan Adams wanted to buy a used car for his 16-year-old son, who’s getting his driver’s license. Adams lives in Illinois, about 40 miles south of the Wisconsin border. He went online and saw an ad for a 2015 Ford Explorer, hosted by a man who lived about an hour away.

DAN ADAMS: Says he was the original owner. He drove the car very little.

QUIRMBACH: So little that the seller said the mileage for the 10-year-old Ford was just 77,000. Adams bought the car for $9,000 but soon noticed problems with the car’s heater and a grinding sound that came when he turned the steering wheel.

(SOUNDBITE OF GRINDING)

QUIRMBACH: Now he rarely drives it. Adams found out that the seller, who lived in Illinois, was a wholesale car dealer licensed in Wisconsin, and the Ford’s mileage was not 77,000 but more than three times as much at 289,000.

ADAMS: I felt embarrassed to talk to my son about what happened, and my wife. And here I am being the breadwinner of the family that supposedly makes good financial decisions and investments.

QUIRMBACH: The Wisconsin DOT says last year, nearly 6,000 vehicles in the state showed signs of odometer rollback, more than three times the year before. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates nationally 450,000 vehicles are sold each year with false odometer readings. The data firm Carfax says, based on its computer analysis of car repair and oil change data and vehicle title transfers, it suspects 2 million cars on U.S. roads have rolled-back odometers, an 18% increase over the last four years. Maura Schifalacqua with the Wisconsin DOT says one of the main causes for the increase is that the rolling back of digital odometers found on modern vehicles is pretty easy. She sits in the driver’s seat of a car and feels for what’s called the OBD, or onboard diagnostics port, usually used for legit purposes by mechanics.

MAURA SCHIFALACQUA: That’s where I am reaching right now - and found it - of where they would connect to it.

QUIRMBACH: They being fraudsters who have one of the many electronic odometer rollback tools you can buy in stores or online. Many of the devices do have legal uses, too. There are other products that investigators can use to detect odometer tampering, and Schifalacqua says other perpetrators can be caught if they do a sloppy job of altering the mileage on the car’s title. But she says investigating fraud can be more difficult in Wisconsin and some other states that still allow someone to get a wholesale car dealer’s license. As more of those license holders purchase older cars at auctions, some illegally sell the cars directly to the public.

SCHIFALACQUA: And, you know, a buyer isn’t afforded the same protection as what they would see if they were buying from a motor vehicle dealer who’s, you know, required to do their inspections and whatnot before it can be sold.

QUIRMBACH: Meantime, odometer fraud victim Dan Adams is trying to get his $9,000 back. He’s going through a hearing process involving the seller’s insurance company, and he says he’ll gladly give up the Ford Explorer. For NPR News, I’m Chuck Quirmbach in Milwaukee. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.