About CarOracle
The licence is the story.
Anyone can call themselves a car buying service. In California, arranging a vehicle transaction for someone else requires a licence, and that licence is a public record.
CarOracle holds California dealer licence 43082 with an autobroker endorsement. The rest of this page is how to check that, and how to check anyone else.
Complimentary · 15 minutes
What the licence is
- Number
- 43082, issued by the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
- Type
- A dealer licence with an autobroker endorsement. Vehicle Code section 11735(a) requires the dealer licence first; the endorsement is added to it, not held instead of it.
- What it obliges
- Vehicle Code section 11735(e): when brokering a retail sale, the brokering dealer owes the buyer a fiduciary duty of utmost care, integrity, honesty, and loyalty. That is a legal standard, not a service promise.
- The paper trail
- Every brokered transaction is entered in a DMV auto broker log, form OL 75, which the department can inspect. The record of the work is kept for the regulator, not for us.
- What it does not include
- We hold no inventory. A broker is permitted to own vehicles and we do not, so there is never a car on our side of the table that we need to move.
California Vehicle Code section 11735. Licence number as issued by the California DMV.
Check it yourself, in about a minute
This works for any California dealer or broker, including one you are comparing us against. If a company arranging your purchase cannot be found here, that is the answer.
Open the DMV Occupational License Lookup
On dmv.ca.gov, follow Vehicle Industry Services, then Occupational Licensing, then Occupational License Lookup.
Search by number or by name
The lookup takes a licence number, a business name, a city or a ZIP code. Ours is 43082. A competitor’s business name is enough if you do not have their number.
Read the status and the discipline history
The record shows licence status, the licence type held, ownership, and any disciplinary action the DMV has taken. Status and discipline are the two that matter.
If it is not online, request the record
Records not shown online are available by submitting a Request for Occupational Licensing Information, form OL 100, with a $5 fee, to the DMV Occupational Licensing Unit, MS L224, PO Box 932342, Sacramento, CA 94232-3420. Non-confidential occupational licensing records are open to public inspection.
The registers themselves
Primary sources, not our description of them.
Check the licence first. Then decide.
That order works for us and it works for anyone else you are considering.
Complimentary · 15 minutes