 Recently I bought a used Airstream and I made a huge mistake that could have cost me all my money. I would have had the camper but I wouldn't have been able to use it or register it or title it, insure it or even sell it. So today I'm gonna tell you about that mistake so it doesn't happen to you. Happy Sunday Birdwatchers! I hope you're all doing well out there. It's Robin with Creativity RV and like I said when I bought this Airstream that I'm sitting in, I made a huge mistake. Now this is my fifth RV so I thought I knew what I was doing but this time I bought the RV from a private party that lived in another state and I did all of my research before I bought it and so did the seller and we thought we did everything right but we didn't and so today I'm going to tell you what I did wrong and also tell you about VIN verification so you know what that is if you buy a car or a camper RV from another private party out of state you have to know this information. So I had my heart set on an Airstream 16 RB which is hard to find and finally I found this little peanut in Louisiana. The seller had the Airstream titled in Louisiana and I am a resident of Colorado so after we came to terms we met halfway in Texas we met at her bank. I gave her a certified check and paid her in full for the camper. We had a bill of sale which we signed in front of the notary and had notarized. We signed the title on the back in front of the notary and we asked her if she should notarize the back but there wasn't a place for her to do that and she said in Texas they weren't allowed to do that instead they had to do something called an acknowledgement form so I gave her the money. I had the bill of sale I had the signed title I even had a copy of her driver's license and she got my check and we went our separate ways and I went back to Colorado to get the camper registered and I knew that I had to get something called a VIN verification and then I just needed to transfer the title to Colorado. Now a VIN verification is actually a good thing it can feel like a pain because you have to take the actual physical vehicle into a car dealership in most states or the police department or some states have drive-through lanes you have to check with your DMV to make sure that you know what the rules are. In Colorado you have to fill out a form it looks like this what they do is they check that the vehicle identification number on the thing you're buying actually matches the title that there's no reason you can't register it that you know the VIN number hasn't been cloned or the title washed and that's good for you to make sure that you're buying a good vehicle that you can actually get registered. So the waiting times in Colorado for me to get this done at the police department was about six weeks so I went down to a local car dealer and they did it for me for free and I filled it out had it in my hot little hands with the signed title from Louisiana on the airstream my bill of sale and everything else that I thought that I needed to get it registered. I got up to the counter at the DMV and hit problem number one the lady there looked at my VIN verification and said oh I can't take this because the car dealer underweight put in NA you can see up here in the corner that's one of the things you have to fill out if you have a camper because the car dealership was used to doing cars and not RVs they usually wrote in a there well the problem is you can't do that the lady said yeah it's too bad they wrote in a in there because otherwise I would have written it in but now I can't because you can't scratch anything out and everything has to match so I first thought okay well I'm gonna have to go back to the dealership but what about the title everything else looks good right well I hand her my Louisiana title and my bill of sale and my acknowledgement form that was notarized and she starts flipping through a manual and then she frowns and she walks away and I was like she gave me a form that you never want to see that says rejected you can see it right here it was rejected because of Louisiana requirements now I was never in Louisiana but the title was in Louisiana here's where I went wrong I should have checked the Louisiana State DMV requirements for transferring the title I was only thinking about what Colorado required but it turns out Colorado wouldn't take what I had because when they sent it to Louisiana Louisiana would have rejected it here's why Louisiana requires that the notary stamp the back of the title now remember the Texas notary wouldn't do that she said instead we had to sign it and do something called to acknowledge would form I'm sitting there in the DMV and I'm saying what am I gonna do I mean we already signed it now she's back in Louisiana I'm back in Colorado it's not like I could call her up and we could meet down you know at the corner bank and have this redone and the seller had my money she had a cash check it was over so I asked the DMV what would happen if the seller didn't respond to me and she didn't help me get this redone and they said well you're out of luck you'd have to get something called a bonded title so to let you know what that is you have to pay for a surety bond while the title is investigated it can take in Colorado about a year and meanwhile you can't use the camper I felt very stuck I knew I could fix the then verification issue but I didn't know what I was gonna do about the title so I call the seller she's such a nice lady she started doing some work and I did some work and finally we got a hold of the notary and the notary said oh yeah well you can send the title back to our bulk mailbox which is not in this building and maybe it'll get to me and you know then I'll have to see the rules and I might be able to stamp the back and I was thinking there's no way I'm sending the original title this is what we ended up doing first of all I went back to the dealership and have them redo the VIN verification had that in hand then I went to a UPS store and I had two people at the UPS store witness the back of the title but there's only one place where the notary can stamp it so they couldn't stamp it here and they gave me a notarized note for the other notary in Louisiana that I had signed the back of the title in their presence then I had to UPS the title back to the seller now I mean I was sweating it you guys she could have kept the camper she could have kept my money and I was really lucky that I was dealing with a wonderful honest person thank you Michelle she got the package she took my notary statement and the title to another notary and she stamped the back where it's supposed to be stamped and you passed it back to me and I took everything down to the DMV and was able to get the airstream registered now if you think this is a weird problem it's not you have to really look at what the seller state requires and what your resident state requires I have some examples here for you is all over the board some places don't care what you do they don't require anything but most states require signatures in the presence of a notary and some want you to do it at the top and some want you to do it at the bottom and some want the front and some want the back and if you do it wrong you're screwed if I had to do it again I would have done a Google search on Louisiana titles looked at images and seen how they were supposed to be signed and notarized I would have gone to the Louisiana DMV website and verified how they had to be signed and notarized and I would have double checked with Colorado I would not have accepted what the Texas notary said I would have shown her what Louisiana required so that I could keep it moving if you're out there hoping to buy your dream RV I hope that this video has helped you I'll see you guys again next week for an all-new video until then everybody out there have happy travels and be free