"A man who was responsible for forty-seven cars that had lower, false odometers was sentenced to federal prison on April 8, 2024." That sentence opens the 26 April 2024 release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Iowa. "Randolph Forrest, age 69, from Cascade, Iowa, received the prison term after a January 17, 2023 guilty plea to one count of wire fraud." The release then says that from June 2012 through July 2021 Forrest conspired with others to roll back odometers on used cars to sell them for more money. Forrest and the others tampered with the odometers of at least forty-seven cars by having them fraudulently altered to reflect lower mileages. They sold the cars to buyers at higher prices than those buyers would have paid had the true mileage been disclosed. "As part of the fraud, Forrest mailed forms to a repair business requesting that odometers be changed to reflect lower mileages. Forrest advertised the cars with the lower, false mileages on Facebook and Craigslist."
"Forrest was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams. Forrest was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and six months' home confinement. He was ordered to make $140,178.55 in restitution to forty-seven victims of his offense. He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system." He was released on the bond previously set and was to surrender to the United States Marshal on May 6, 2024. "The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kyndra Lundquist and investigated by the United States Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Iowa Department of Transportation, and the United States Postal Inspection Service." The case file number is 22-CR-1016.
Away from that release, the stipulation gives the miles he asked for. He personally requested recalibrations on at least 27 vehicles. Two came down by around 80000 miles. The others he described were between 10000 and 30000 miles. The average was about 47000. A government expert assumed an ordinary driver expected about 150000 miles of use, the court adopted that model, and the chart of miles sat in the presentence report. That model is where the restitution dollars come from. On 2 September 2025 the Eighth Circuit, in United States v. Forrest, No. 24-1827, left the restitution order in place and printed it as 140178.56 dollars.
The indictment had charged odometer tampering and mail fraud as well as wire fraud. The plea that drew the sentence was the wire fraud count. 49 U.S.C. 32703 bars disconnecting, resetting, or altering an odometer in order to change the mileage it registers. A knowing and willful violation of the chapter can mean a fine, up to three years in prison, or both. The prison time here was six months. The court was working from the mailed forms, the advertisements, and the titles.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation release of 12 May 2025, put out on National Odometer Day, is a count from a different office. "Last year, investigations by Wisconsin DMV's Dealer and Agent Section identified 5,961 vehicles which showed signs of having odometer rollbacks. This marked a sharp increase from 2023 when the DMV investigators identified 1,736 vehicles." Maura Schifalacqua, DMV Dealer and Agent Section Chief, said, "Illegally manipulating odometers to roll back the mileage numbers before a sale has been around for decades. Today's fraudsters, however, have kept pace with technology and essentially hack the vehicle's computer to change the mileage. This puts the new owner at risk." The release goes on in its own arithmetic. "Of the nearly 6,000 vehicles discovered with altered mileage last year, an estimated 613,910,784 miles were rolled off the odometers. The estimated fraud loss based on a $0.06 per mile damage calculation is $36,834,647." It calls the 2023 comparison a marked increase, with an estimated 181,706,452 miles rolled off and an estimated fraud loss of $10,902,387. "Wisconsin DMV Dealer and Agent Section investigators revoked 20 wholesale dealer licenses in 2024 due to odometer and title fraud. Last year's total equaled the combined number of revocations from 2022 and 2023 (10 wholesale dealer licenses revoked each year)."
DMV investigator Joel Ingebrigtson is in the same release. "Odometer fraud is used to increase profit but also to gain a competitive advantage within the used vehicle market." He said that as the practice becomes more common in a market, the reason can move from gaining that advantage to keeping up with competitors who are already committing the fraud, and that consumers suffer as a result.
"When a vehicle buyer requests a new Wisconsin title, the DMV checks the odometer statement on latest title against available title information and confirms that the information is current. Out-of-state vehicle titles are checked by using the Vehicle Information Number (VIN) in a national database." That parenthetical is theirs. The database a member of the public can query is NMVTIS, operated for the Justice Department. A report can include the latest odometer reading a participating state submitted, and a brand with the date it was applied. The fiscal 2024 report, October 2023 through September 2024, describes the brand Odometer Not Actual as a discrepancy in the odometer information and lists Odometer Exceeds Mechanical Limits alongside it. If nothing comes back, no brand, odometer, or title information has been reported for that vehicle, and repair history is not part of the file. In the Texas tables of that report there were 173 titles with altered odometers, 11525 odometer discrepancies, and 434 vehicles previously reported as exempt from disclosure which then received the not actual brand.
Under 49 C.F.R. 580.5 the title has to show the mileage the seller disclosed, in whole miles, and it has to leave a space for the next transfer. The seller certifies that the reading is the actual mileage, that it exceeds the odometer's mechanical limits, or that it does not reflect the miles the car has traveled and should not be relied on. 49 U.S.C. 32705 says a state is not to license the vehicle unless the new title carries that disclosure and room for the next one. The same subsection says the state is not required to verify the number written there. A clerk holding the signed title can lay that mileage against the latest reading a VIN number check on VinNumber.net returns.
The Iowa release still carries the older national line. "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that odometer fraud in the United States results in consumer losses of more than $1 billion annually." The Eastern District of Wisconsin used the same estimate on 6 December 2023. The notice behind it is a preliminary report NHTSA published in the Federal Register on 16 July 2002. Lifetime exposure 3.47 percent. About 452000 cases a year. An average consumer cost of 2336 dollars. About 1056 million dollars a year.
