He rents a Lamborghini and a Ferrari from a former policeman... who disappears "during the week of my wedding"

At the time of the incident, Ed Bolian was not yet the well-known face of the VINwiki youtube channel. At the time, he was the head of Supercar Rentals, a company specializing in luxury car rentals in the Atlanta area. LamborghiniFerrari, Porsche: the kind of car that dreams are made of, but that also implies absolute trust in customers. Among them, a former Atlanta policeman. A reassuring, almost ideal profile. Ed Bolian rents him two prestigious cars: a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti. The rental is for the weekend, with the possibility of extending for a few days. A formality. But nothing goes according to plan.

Overtime... then silence

Day after day, the customer extends the rental. He doesn't pay by credit card as expected, but in cash. It's not ideal, but Ed Bolian has the documents, a deposit and, above all, a geolocation system on the vehicles. He accepts. Until Wednesday. That day, no answer. The phone rings in the dark. Ed Bolian begins to worry and consults the GPS trackers. The Lamborghini Gallardo was located in Midtown Atlanta. On the spot, the scene was brutal: the car was in a garage, with the entire front end destroyed. But the worst was yet to come. The Ferrari 612 Scaglietti has disappeared off the radar. Its tracker is out of order, which should never happen.

"On my wedding day, I didn't know where the Ferrari was".

The timing couldn't be worse. The disappearance comes during the week of Ed Bolian's wedding. While he should be concentrating on the ceremony, he spends his days calling and searching. On his wedding day, the situation is still deadlocked. The Ferrari is nowhere to be found.

The police are no help. The problem is a legal one: the car was not stolen in the criminal sense. It had been rented legally, then kept beyond the agreed rental period. In the United States, this falls under the heading of "theft by conversion", a gray area that transforms the case into a simple civil dispute. In other words: no rapid intervention, no seizure, no emergency. For Ed Bolian, it's a total nightmare. Reporting the claim to the insurance company would pay off the car loan... but it would also mean the end of his business. In the world of supercar rental, one claim is often enough to get you blacklisted by insurers.

A Ferrari "sold" in an impossible transaction

In the middle of a bachelor party, Ed Bolian receives an unexpected call. A woman claims that her husband bought the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti that very day... in exchange for a BMW 7 Series and $155,000 in cash. An absurd story, since no one in his company has the right to sell a vehicle. Especially not a Ferrari belonging to the leasing company. Yet the car is indeed in the hands of this couple, who are demanding that the transaction be cancelled. The situation is becoming surreal.

Blackmail to get the car back

After the honeymoon, Ed Bolian finally traces the trail. The name of the man who owns the Ferrari is finally circulating: "Lucky". His condition is simple: $5,000 to return the car. On the advice of a policeman, he agrees to pay by cheque... knowing that it will not be cashed. The Ferrari is recovered with completely flat tires, requiring towing. When the check bounces, the threats come. But the main thing is there: the Ferrari is back.

Ed Bolian explains why this business no longer works

Looking back, Ed Bolian considers this episode to be one of the darkest of his career. And above all, as a perfect demonstration of the excesses of the exotic car rental business. Fake papers, false insurance, credible identities, cars moved between states, altered chassis numbers: the networks were organized, efficient, and perfectly aware of the legal loopholes in the system. Today, he says, this type of misadventure happens every day to supercar rental companies. That's also why Ed Bolian left the business to devote himself to VINwiki, a platform that has become a must in the automotive world, based on the sharing of true and sometimes unbelievable stories, like this one.