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I moved back to Florida last year after moving out of the state back in 1995.

Since my birthday is coming soon I logged into the Florida DMV to check about renewing my license plates (I have purchased a Toyota and have a Ford lease car). Once logged in I noticed that their system lists me as the owner of a 1972 Dodge. It looks like as shown in below image:

snip from DMV DB

The title is listed as still being active. The funny thing is just that I have never owned a Dodge from 1970's.

This is a bit of a concern because if this vehicle is involved in any criminal activity (in cases where they e.g. do not catch the driver), I could easily become a suspect. I am guessing this has not been a problem yet as they probably would have said something when I went to change my out-of-state driving license to the Florida version last year.

In an attempt to find out more about this vehicle I checked the vehicle history services linked to at http://www.vehiclehistory.gov/nmvtis_vehiclehistory.html. All of the listed services said however that they do not have any information about the VIN number.

And the DMV site does provide a link to this form HSMV 82050 that can be used for removing a vehicle listed that one "no longer owns". The problem with this form is however that it asks me to enter the name and address of the person that I have delivered the vehicle to. So it does not seem to be applicable to my situation.

Also I am guessing that this sort of thing could not have happened merely if someone else has the same name as I do. After all the DMV login process asks me to identify myself based on my SSN and some other information.

So the questions I wanted to ask is:

  1. Wouldn't transferring a title to another persons name require some kind of acknowledgement from the recipient?
  2. If this can be part of some kind of a scam?
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I had a similar problem -just the reverse- and had to go down to the DMV office to straighten everything out.

They should be able to tell you what needs to be done. I wouldn't try and handle it over the phone or electronically.

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