I had my vehicle listed on cars.com and this David Owen calls me inquiring about the vehicle and requests pictures. He later tells me he ran a car fax and Auto check and the vehicle checked out and he was interested. I told him that I did not own the vehicle out right and that the a finance company holds the title. He said he would pay off the loan and asked for the account number, my name address and last 4 digits of my SS# which was ok to do since I was not compromising my entire SS#. He called me back and said he had paid off the loan through a bank wire transfer and asked when he could get the porsche. I told him I would need to call the finance company to verify. I did and they said the man called and paid check by phone. I was a little suspicious because he had said previously that he paid by bank wire transfer. I asked the finance company about this check by phone and they said it would have to clear his bank first which would take a few days but they did say he paid the entire balance. When I called David Owen back, he said he wanted to fly someone to pick up the vehicle that evening and I told him no way, not until it cleared. He was a bit confused as to why I would do that but I was holding my ground. This happened on Dec 28 and on Dec 31st I called the finance company and they told me the check had cleared and was still skeptical and asked SST to please make sure and to check but they just told me that they would send me the title the week of Jan 4th. I was determined not to release the vehicle until I had the title in hand and in the mean time, I had emailed David M. Owen the bill of sale but he never responded and so I called him and told him and he said he would check on it. I never heard from him again and so on Jan 2nd, I called the automated line for SST and previously I had a zero balance but this time my balance was back as well as an additional $150 charge. Since it is the weekened as I write this, I have not been able to call finance company to find out what happened but I presume David Owen stopped payment knowing he was not going to get the car until it cleared which would have defeated his plan on getting the car at no charge and screwing me over. If I would have released the car to his friend, my insurance company would not have covered it because I released this car on my own free will and although it was a crime, it was not stolen which meant I could only get my money back from David in a civil case if I could find him however he would still be charged with theft by deception. After I heard the automated message with the balance I called David and surprisingly he answered his phone and I asked him what happened to his payment that he made on my account and all he could say was that he saw it was pending back into his account. This is the same answer he told me after he sent the money that it was already pending out of his account. The lesson learned from this Scam is to do what I did and not to release your vehicle even if your lienholder tells you that the account is paid in full unless the money was sent via bankwire transfer. Do not release the vehicle until you have the title in hand from the lienholder. I of course let David Owen know that I was going to do everything possible to bring him to justice for his attempted scam and I do plan on following through with that statement. He has now disconnected his google phone service and so at least now I have him running scared. His email is [email protected] .