Avoid used cars liens by checking with Postal Company

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
A quarter of all Postal Company customers who in the last year have looked at its website to determine ownership of vehicles have found that there are ordinary debts or liens on the property, the company disclosed on Wednesday. For the last two years, the company has offered this speedy online service free.
It is very unpleasant, after finding a used car that you like, to discover that there are debts on it at the last moment, says the company. There has been since the beginning of 2010 a 65 percent increase of the use of the a search to find an unpaid loan or lien, but the number of unpaid debts has remained constant at 25%, the company said.
The Postal Company has the debt information available in real time; even the Transportation Ministry’s Licensing Bureau has no online database with information about liens or loans on vehicles.
In many cases the debts were unpaid loans that honest people hurried planned to repay. But some people try to cheat victims into thinking the vehicle was paid for, leaving purchasers in the lurch after they assume ownership of the car. Often the genuine owner – the bank or the leasing company – then demands the vehicle back, leaving the buyer with no car and no money.
Checking the ownership with the Postal Company cost NIS 99, but users can receive a one-time NIS 99 discount on a petrol purchase from the Delek Company, making the service essentially free.
At the start of 2011, the Postal Company decided, in cooperation with the NFS Company, to offer another incentive for checking ownership by offering a 5% discount at Menta convenience.
Meirabi Pitchhadza, head of the business line at the Postal Company, said that every year, some 600,000 transfers of used vehicles are carried out.
In 2010, more than 50,000 customers used the online service, compared to only 29,000 in the previous year.
“We are happy that we saved many families from losing their money when the vehicle they ‘purchased’ would later be confiscated,” he said.