California’s Department of Motor Vehicles once dispatched investigators statewide in a single-day sting and handed out 139 citations to sellers who were never licensed dealers in the first place, according to a CBS Sacramento report on the operation. Every one of them was posing as an ordinary person selling their own car. If your “private seller” wants to meet in a mall parking lot instead of showing you their house, you may be buying from exactly that kind of operator, and the legal protections you think you have may not apply.

What Curbstoning Actually Is

The practice is called curbstoning, and it works by having unlicensed dealers buy cheap, often damaged or salvage-title vehicles from auctions or private sellers, do the bare minimum in cosmetic repairs, and resell them while posing as a private individual, according to the San Diego City Attorney’s own consumer warning. Because California law requires a license to buy or sell vehicles for profit, operating this way is not a gray area. It is a criminal misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, and can escalate to felony theft-by-false-pretense or forgery charges depending on what the seller misrepresented, per the same city attorney’s guidance.

The reason curbstoners hide their identity is simple: licensed dealers are bound by disclosure laws, dealer bonds, and often state lemon law coverage that private-party sales are exempt from. By posing as a private seller, a curbstoner sheds every one of those obligations while still operating a business, and the buyer ends up with none of the protections either a licensed dealer or a genuine private sale would normally carry.

 

How the DMV Actually Catches Them

The CBS Sacramento report on the DMV’s sting operation described how curbstoners typically cluster several vehicles at once in pop-up lots on public streets, in shopping center parking lots, or on borrowed private property, then advertise each car under a different seller name on sites like Craigslist while reusing the same phone number across listings. DMV Director George Valverde said at the time that the goal of these enforcement sweeps is to keep unsafe, unrepaired vehicles off the road before someone gets hurt in one, and violators face towing plus several thousand dollars in fines and fees per confiscated vehicle.

That same pattern, several cars, one number, and a public meeting spot instead of a home address, is exactly what a private buyer should watch for before ever handing over cash.

Red Flags Before You Buy

Ask to see the seller’s ID and confirm the name matches the one on the title exactly. A curbstoner will often hesitate, claim the title is “at home,” or produce a title with a different name and a story about a recent inheritance or gift. Search the phone number from the ad separately; if it turns up attached to several other listings for different makes and models, that is a defining signature of the practice, according to the San Diego City Attorney’s guidance.

Ask for maintenance records and a vehicle history report, and treat outright refusal as disqualifying, since a genuine owner typically has at least some service paperwork while a curbstoner selling a car they owned for days does not. Insist on completing the sale at the address on the title rather than a rotating public lot, and have an independent mechanic inspect the car before money changes hands, since curbstoned vehicles are frequently patched up cosmetically while mechanical or safety defects go untouched.

What to Do If You Already Bought One

Consumers who suspect they bought from a curbstoner can report it directly to their state DMV; California’s number is 1-800-777-0133 per the city attorney’s advisory, and most states maintain a similar consumer complaint line through their motor vehicle agency or attorney general’s office. Because curbstoning is a criminal matter as well as a consumer protection one, buyers who were sold a salvage or flood vehicle without disclosure may also have grounds for a civil claim separate from any DMV enforcement action.

The entire scheme depends on a buyer never asking the one question that unravels it: why would a genuine owner selling their own car insist on meeting anywhere but home?