My 20-year-old son and I followed our GPS into a gritty, deserted part of Chicopee, Mass. The apartment building for which we were looking was across the street from a funeral parlor and a few doors down from a liquor store. Trash was strewn on the sidewalk; the door to the building was locked.

We double-checked the address from the Craigslist ad. Then we got a text telling us to meet in a nearby alley. A man with a heavy Spanish accent nodded at us, pointed at a 2007 Toyota Yaris, and said, “Twenty two hundred dollars. Here’s the title. It’s signed over.”

“But that’s not your name on the title?” I said. (It was a woman’s name.)

“No. I buy and sell cars.”

There were no plates on the vehicle, which was not registered….