| -

SAN DIEGO — A former executive with AutoCheck, Experian Automotive's vehicle history reporting service, recently has taken on a role with MobileTrac, the provider of instaVIN.

Now serving as the director of data development with MobileTrac is Edie Hirtenstein. MobileTrac's instaVIN is newcomer to the vehicle history provider segment, having gone through an initial launch earlier this year.

Executives recounted that Hirtenstein served as a senior product manager and led the data and feature development initiatives for AutoCheck. They also noted she is one of the named inventors of the AutoCheck Score feature, which has helped drive AutoCheck existing dealer client usage and attract major new customers.

Hirtenstein also worked on a number of other important product and data enhancement initiatives during her tenure at AutoCheck that lasted more than seven years.

"Edie's understanding of what drives dealers' data requirements for buying and selling used vehicles at auction and on the lot will be instrumental in helping instaVIN create the most competitive vehicle data service available in the marketplace," said Jim Irish, chief executive officer of MobileTrac.

"We are thrilled to have Edie on our team," Irish added.

After revealing in late May that it would be offering free auto accident reports via mobile devices through the end of June, instaVIN announced earlier this month that this special deal is now good until July 31.

How does this work? To find out the accident history of a particular vehicle, users can text the specific VIN to 46782. Within "seconds," the report will be sent back.

As reported earlier, users can get one free report per phone. They can go online to www.instavin.com to access the accident report, as well. It costs $1.99 to access the first report. Then, users must pay $2.99 to view each additional report, including accident records, vehicle specifications, average local retail asking price, printable reports and online access.