Adams County Car Dealer Faces Fraud Charges for Failure to Register Buyers’ Auto Titles

Buying a car is a multi-step process. When you walk into a car dealership and do more than take a few selfies with the cars on the showroom floor, when you stay long enough to engage with a salesperson, you are in for a long day; in fact, you should never shop for cars on an empty stomach, or else you will end up agreeing to an unaffordable purchase price just so you can leave the car dealership and eat lunch. After you buy the car and sign the loan agreement, you must sign the title paperwork and call the insurance company to add the car to your policy. You assume that the dealership would do its part to streamline the process, and most of the time, dealerships do. Used car fraud comes in many varieties, though, and not all of them involve dealers misleading customers about the condition of the cars they are buying. A car dealer in Adams County is facing fraud charges for misleading buyers about the titles to their cars. If you have incurred financial losses because of misrepresentations by a used car dealer, contact a Philadelphia used car fraud lawyer.

Customers Who Bought Cars From Ideal Auto Sales Get an Unpleasant Surprise

Michael Lee Humber owns an Ideal Auto Sales dealership location in Straban Township. In 2025, 14 customers came forward with complaints about misrepresentations Humbert had made about the titles to the vehicles they bought. He did not file the paperwork to register the titles of the cars to the buyers, which meant that the buyers did not legally own the cars, even though they had paid for them and, in some cases, signed loan agreements to finance them.

One customer found out about the fraud in a most disturbing way. His daughter, who had recently gotten a driver’s license, was driving the car her father had just bought, when the police pulled her over and asked for the registration. When she gave it to them, explaining that it was her father’s car and he had just bought it, they found that it was not registered to his name. The buyer called the Department of Transportation and found out that Ideal Auto Sales had never filed the paperwork to register the title in his name. Therefore, he reported Humbert’s fraud to the police. An insurance company in Gettysburg also contacted the police when a policyholder called them about insuring a newly purchased car and they discovered that it did not have a valid title.

An investigation revealed that, when Humbert visited the Department of Transportation’s title registration portal, he did not upload the title documents, but only filled in incomplete information on the website. He also falsified the purchase dates for some of the cars.

Contact CONSUMERLAWPA.com About Used Car Fraud

A Philadelphia consumer law attorney can help you if a used car dealer defrauded you about the title to your car.  Contact CONSUMERLAWPA.com to set up a free, confidential consultation.

Source:

local21news.com/news/local/car-dealership-owner-hit-with-over-350-charges-for-fraudulent-vehicle-sales-ideal-auto-sales-and-service-straban-township-dover-adams-county-pennsylvania-pa