Terms of service

Eligibility and accounts

You must be legally able to enter a contract and provide accurate order or account information. You are responsible for safeguarding credentials and activity under your account.

Reports and permitted use

Reports are provided for internal use only. A purchased report is licensed solely for your own internal use in evaluating the identified vehicle, including personal vehicle research or an internal business decision. You may retain a copy for that purpose, but may not resell, publish, redistribute, scrape, systematically extract, reverse engineer or use the service or report to build a competing database or data product.

ClearVIN provider terms incorporated into these Terms

Your purchase and checkout agreement is with VIN Lookup. You accept these VIN Lookup Terms of Service only; you do not separately accept or enter into a checkout contract with ClearVIN. The ClearVIN-specific conditions in this section are incorporated into and form part of these Terms whenever you request, access, download, retain or use a ClearVIN-supplied preview or report.

ClearVIN and its licensors retain all rights, title, intellectual property rights, copyrights, trademarks and trade names in each ClearVIN report, its content and its underlying data, subject to any rights held by original data sources. VIN Lookup may present permitted preview information in its own interface, but the complete ClearVIN report is stored and delivered without rewriting, restyling, removing attribution or disclaimers, or otherwise modifying the provider document.

Your access to a ClearVIN report is limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable and for your own internal vehicle-research or internal business-decision use. You may retain a copy for that purpose, but you may not alter, reproduce for redistribution, publish, sell, sublicense, distribute, scrape, systematically extract, reverse engineer, create derivative datasets from, remove provider notices from, commercially exploit, or use a report or the service to build a competing database, product or service.

ClearVIN reports rely on records supplied by government agencies and other third-party sources. Those records and the resulting reports are provided on an as-available basis and can contain inaccuracies, omissions or delays. Neither a report nor a preview is a warranty of a vehicle’s condition, safety, marketability, title, ownership, accident history or suitability for purchase, and neither replaces document verification or an independent vehicle inspection.

You must use ClearVIN-supplied information lawfully and may not use automated means to access or copy the provider service, interfere with its operation, infringe intellectual-property or privacy rights, misrepresent provider content, or use the information to facilitate unlawful conduct.

ClearVIN liability waiver and indemnity

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, you acknowledge that ClearVIN reports rely on third-party source data and you waive claims against ClearVIN, its directors, officers, employees, affiliates, agents, contractors, licensors, service providers and data suppliers arising solely from inaccuracies, omissions, delays or unavailability in that data, your reliance on a report as a substitute for an independent inspection or title review, or your misuse of the service.

You agree to indemnify and hold those ClearVIN parties harmless from third-party claims, losses and reasonable costs arising from your breach of these Terms, unlawful use, redistribution or alteration of a report, or infringement of another party’s rights.

This waiver and indemnity is incorporated into and forms part of these VIN Lookup Terms. It does not exclude liability for fraud, wilful misconduct, gross negligence, or any liability or mandatory consumer right that cannot lawfully be waived, limited or excluded.

Coverage and buyer responsibility

Vehicle data can be delayed, incomplete or inaccurate, and some events are never reported. A report is informational, not a warranty, appraisal, title opinion or substitute for document verification and an independent inspection.

Pricing and payment

The listed price is in U.S. dollars for one report unless checkout states otherwise. Taxes may apply. Payment is processed by a third-party provider under its terms.

Acceptable use

Do not use the service unlawfully, interfere with security, test systems without authorization, overload endpoints or attempt to identify protected personal information about prior owners.

Availability, third-party data and liability

Features and providers may change. ClearVIN reports and third-party source data are provided on an as-available basis and may contain omissions, delays or errors. ClearVIN is not a party to your vehicle transaction. To the extent permitted by law, neither VIN Lookup nor ClearVIN and its licensors or data sources make any implied guarantee of completeness, accuracy, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or vehicle condition, and none of them shall be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages; aggregate liability for the affected service is limited to the amount paid for it. Rights and liabilities that cannot legally be waived or limited remain unaffected.

NMVTIS Consumer Access Product Disclaimer

The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS) is an electronic system that contains information on certain automobiles titled in the United States. NMVTIS is intended to serve as a reliable source of title and brand history for automobiles, but it does not contain detailed information regarding a vehicle’s repair history. All states, insurance companies, and junk and salvage yards are required by federal law to regularly report information to NMVTIS.

However, NMVTIS does not contain information on all motor vehicles in the United States because some states are not yet providing their vehicle data to the system. Currently, the data provided to NMVTIS by states is provided in a variety of time frames; while some states report and update NMVTIS data in “real-time” (as title transactions occur), other states send updates less frequently, such as once every 24 hours or within a period of days.

Information on previous, significant vehicle damage may not be included in the system if the vehicle was never determined by an insurance company (or other appropriate entity) to be a “total loss” or branded by a state titling agency. Conversely, an insurance carrier may be required to report a “total loss” even if the vehicle’s titling-state has not determined the vehicle to be “salvage” or “junk.” A vehicle history report is NOT a substitute for an independent vehicle inspection.

Before making a decision to purchase a vehicle, consumers are strongly encouraged to also obtain an independent vehicle inspection to ensure the vehicle does not have hidden damage. The Approved NMVTIS Data Providers (look for the NMVTIS logo) can include vehicle condition data from sources other than NMVTIS.

NMVTIS data INCLUDES (as available by those entities required to report to the System):

• Information from participating state motor vehicle titling agencies.
• Information on automobiles, buses, trucks, motorcycles, recreational vehicles, motor homes, and tractors. NMVTIS may not currently include commercial vehicles if those vehicles are not included in a state’s primary database for title records (in some states, those vehicles are managed by a separate state agency), although these records may be added at a later time.
• Information on “brands” applied to vehicles provided by participating state motor vehicle titling agencies. Brand types and definitions vary by state but may provide useful information about the condition or prior use of the vehicle.
• Most recent odometer reading in the state’s title record.
• Information from insurance companies, and auto recyclers, including junk and salvage yards, that is required by law to be reported to the system, beginning March 31, 2009. This information will include if the vehicle was determined to be a “total loss” by an insurance carrier.
• Information from junk and salvage yards receiving a “cash for clunker” vehicle traded-in under the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009 (CARS) Program.

Consumers are advised to visit www.vehiclehistory.gov for details on how to interpret the information in the system and understand the meaning of various labels applied to vehicles by the participating state motor vehicle titling agencies.