Indiana State Police investigates 5 auto dealerships on south side of Indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — KBB Auto Sales, a car dealership on the city’s south side, currently has 25 open consumer complaints and several lawsuits filed against the company, mostly involving odometer fraud. However, I-Team 8 is finding four associate auto companies are under investigation, according to the Indiana State Police.

“It’s like a repeat pattern of fraud. Basically, they’re taking a vehicle from me to put it back on on their lot to sell it,” explains Kaili Branch who is a client of KBB Auto Sales. “I only owed them $100 for the payment, for the week that I was behind. When I called them to see what it was going to be to get my truck back after the repossession, it went up to $1,150.” 

Branch says she went to KBB Auto with the money, but the dealership refused to give back her car. Contractually, they’re supposed to. Branch says she had already paid $6,000 on her GMC Terrain.

“The name that pops up [on the receipt], like it pops up as Red Nose Auto Salvage, so it’s not even the same company,” Branch said.

I-Team 8 asked Branch to pull up her last receipts to KBB Auto, but noticed that her last few payments were going to a different company — Rednose Auto Salvage, a company not in her contract. I-Team 8 found that along with Rednose Auto Salvage, the following companies were also registered to the same address as KBB Auto Sales.

• Troy Auto Sales
• Kevin’s Auto Services
• Wholesale Exchange

I-Team 8’s Jasmine Minor went looking for answers to the address listed on W Troy Avenue. Minor found the building had a sign up for “Troy Auto Sales” and a few signs inside saying KBB Auto was going “out of business.”

The owner of Troy Auto Sales refused to take questions. However, Minor found that Branch’s GMC Terrain was still on the building’s lot. That GMC was shortly driven off the parking lot and posted for sale on the Troy Auto Sales Facebook page. It was posted with about 11,000 less miles than what it actually has, according to Branch’s last odometer reading in November. The Facebook post has since been deleted.

Just a few hours after Minor, visited the business, the Rednose Auto Salvage LLC was dissolved, according to records from the Indiana Secretary of State.

“One of my cases there was a very similar situation,” explains Jenna Krichbaum, a staff attorney with Indiana Legal Services. “All of their receipts were showing that it went to KBB and then all of a sudden, without warning, those same receipts, made to the same place, were now showing Rednose Auto Sale.”

Krichbaum says Indiana Legal Services has six different lawsuits against or involving KBB Auto. Some of the lawsuits list multiple parties linked to odometer fraud. She says, so far, they have won five of the six cases for victims of the dealership.

“Last I heard there was closer to about 100 people that [Indiana State Police] had discovered were potential victims of the odometer fraud specifically,” Krichbaum said.

Krichbaum says it’s unclear how each of the businesses are linked together, however, it leaves people like Branch, a single mom, at a standstill.

“To have to explain that to a seven-year-old that Christmas is not going to be, you know, like it has been because times are, you know, hard, is rough.”

I-Team 8 called the owner of KBB Auto Sales several times, but each time it went directly to voicemail.