BELLEVUE, Wash. -- A local teenager thought he was getting a good deal on a used car. But it turns out he got duped, caught in a scam.

The teenager bought his car on Craigslist and was able to look past the mismatched door and the bumper held on with a zip tie.

If he looked under the hood, he saw epoxy holding parts together. Chris Siler from the Washington State Patrol sympathizes.

"You just want to get from point A to point B," Siler said. "You don't question too many things. You're just happy you got your wheels."

And a set of wheels for $2,000 doesn't seem too bad until you hear Trooper Rick Fisher say, "I think he paid two grand for a car I wouldn't pay a hundred bucks for."

The ugly parts of the car aren't the problem; it's where the parts came from. Some of the car is an '87 Jetta. Some is an '89 Jetta. It's all combined into one vehicle.

It started with an unlicensed dealer buying a car at a salvage auction.

"Take it home in his backyard, his garage, throw the thing together with parts that he got here and there and put an unsafe car on the roadway," said Fisher.

The practice is a scam. Before selling the car, the scammer scraped the VIN off the door frame. And the VIN in the window didn't match the license plates.

It is legal to drive now, after the state patrol updated the car with fresh paperwork, numbers and plates. But it's not all that safe.

"Given that it was totalled a number of times, given the craftsmanship of the repairs, I couldn't put a dollar amount on this vehicle," said Siler. "I wouldn't buy it."

To save yourself an expensive headache, take any used car you're thinking about buying to a mechanic first.

It'll cost you more, but it could save you from putting a wreck on the road and your life on the line.