Criminals are always finding new ways to cheat people. Car shoppers should be aware of certain criminal actions. One is an odometer rollback. When you order a vehicle inspection for a car you are considering buying, you should also have the odometer reading checked.

The odometer on a car contains a record of the number of miles driven on the vehicle in its lifetime. It’s against the law to set this number back to zero once it is driven. This is sometimes a problem in the used car business. There are people out there who roll the odometer back, making you think a car has less miles and is newer than it is. If a car is in good condition and the physical appearance looks good, you might expect it to have low miles as well. This is not always the case and some people might take advantage of this.

There are new ways to detect such a problem. If you suspect an odometer was illegally rolled back, you can use websites such asCARCHEX or Carfax.com to determine how old the car really is, as well as get an odometer reading. To use one of these websites for this particular purpose, you need to enter the car’s vehicle identification number (VIN) and the state motor vehicle department. You will probably be charged $25 to do this, but it will save you money down the road, especially if you find there is a problem with the odometer reading.