Posted on 09/30/2025 8:06:59 AM PDT by Miami Rebel
When Coast Guard Officer Shane Sprague bought a 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 AT4X in Thunderstorm Gray, he expected the deal to be straightforward. He left South Florida's Doral Volkswagen on June 21 after depositing $15,000 while covering the remaining price through a trade in and financing. Unfortunately, he had no way to know that the dealership's finance manager had made a mistake with the VIN, accidentally linking his plates to a different truck.
That clerical error led the dealership to report the Sierra as stolen and trigger its LoJack tracker. However, Sprague never agreed to having a tracker installed, which was particularly concerning since his work on helicopters occasionally used by high ranking government officials meant that his security clearance prohibited the use of tracking devices on his vehicles.
On July 1, after leaving a physical therapy appointment, Sprague was suddenly surrounded by deputies. An unmarked Ford F-150 rammed his truck, and Broward Sheriff's Office officers pulled him out at gunpoint. He spent four hours in a jail cell before detectives finally confirmed he was the rightful owner. By then, the truck had already been towed away, and the incident had left him shaken.
Sprague canceled the purchase soon after and filed a lawsuit accusing Doral Volkswagen of negligence, false imprisonment, and emotional distress. His legal team is seeking more than $50,000 in damages and argues the dealership failed to perform basic due diligence before reporting the vehicle stolen. His attorney, Ignacio Alvarez, described the event as gross negligence that escalated into a dangerous situation no customer should ever face.
Sprague has since spoken publicly about the ordeal, saying his life was turned upside down. He went from being a decorated 27-year Coast Guard veteran to receiving online messages from strangers accusing him of stealing a truck. "I was pulled out of my truck by BSO and put in a jail cell for four hours," he told NBC 6. "It was one of the scariest events of my life that I [couldn't] ever prepared for."
The dealership, owned by Lithia Motors, has issued a statement calling the case an isolated human error. Lawyers for Doral Volkswagen have moved to compel arbitration, aiming to settle the matter outside of court through a neutral third party. They expressed regret and apologized, but Sprague was still left driving a rental car while waiting for the case to move forward.
The mix-up highlights a growing issue with dealership errors and hidden tracking devices in vehicles after sale. While this incident may have been unintentional, it shows how a simple VIN mistake can spiral into a felony stop, a jail cell, and a legal battle. Which is why you should always know where to find your vehicle's VIN number – you never know when you might need it.
Search the vehicle for any trackers and put them on the dealership manager’s vehicle. Let him get a gun in his face.
> His legal team is seeking more than $50,000 in damages… <
He needs to find a new legal team. That number is way too low.
And then there’s the arbitration clause that was evidently in the contract. Such a clause should not apply to that level of negligence. Let a jury decide.
“Which is why you should always know where to find your vehicle’s VIN number – you never know when you might need it.“
____________
Obviously that would not have helped here. Don’t know why the author mentions it. Your VIN is in a few places on your car and usually encoded in a QR code and a bar code too.
But, the dealership had inadvertently pegged that VIN of the truck this man had purchased as being stolen.
” Lawyers for Doral Volkswagen have moved to compel arbitration”
The law firm of Dindu Nuffin.
So, the lesson we learned here is that we always need to know where to find your VIN (Vehicle Identification Number)? The N means number. So it’s VIN not VIN number. Anyway I can tell you that it is at the bottom of the windshield on the driver’s side clearly visible from the outside of the car. Knowing where it was would not have helped this guy in the least. Even knowing the VIN itself would not have kept him from being apprehended.
Sounds like an old Arkansas scam where wrecked vehicles were towed to Missouri for scrapping. Instead they were cobbled together with other wrecks, towed to Arkansas and sold through the auto auctions as ‘Abandoned cars”. You could then get a new title showing it had never been wrecked. Always wondered why we could never find a good used car here. Finally a worker here told me of the scam.
Had a man buy a truck in another state, got a loan from his Credit Union, towed it to a junk yard piled wrecks around it so the Repo men could not get to it. He then pulled it down into Arkansas and sold it through an auto auction as an “abandoned truck”. The new buyer got a loan from HIS credit union to buy it. When he came home from his job the truck was gone. The original Credit union found and repossessed it leaving the second owner holding the bag for his own loan from his own credit union.
< sigh >
Surprised they had sufficient self control not to kill him.
I watched the whole YouTube video. The guy was way too nice to the cops. He never got upset and was smiling and laughing with the cops at the end of the 4+ hr ordeal. The cops threw the dealership under the bus and passed all the blame onto them, even suggesting that the guy should sue the dealership, but the cops share the blame. They did zero investigation into the situation before ramming the guy’s brand new truck and treating him like a felony.
Search the vehicle for any trackers and put them on the dealership manager’s vehicle. Let him get a gun in his face.
Trackers are often passive and are not easy to find and remove, especially if they are installed as part of the vehicle’s digital systems.
They did zero investigation into the situation before ramming the guy’s brand new truck and treating him like a felony.
I agree, they should never have rammed the truck. How does that help anything? It only destroys property.
The use of lowjack, without the owner knowing of it, shows how far down the path we are to being controlled by our new digital overlords.
ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He’s owed a lot more for that *mistake*.
Dep't of Redundancy department.
All but the part where they rammed the vehicle. I am sure he pulled over when he saw the lights. He should be suing the police as well.
Only $50K?
That’s what I was thinking
A new truck free from the dealer for starters. Then money on top.
A new truck free from the dealer for starters. Then money on top.
A new truck free from the dealer for starters. Then money on top.
A new truck free from the dealer for starters. Then money on top.
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