Independent Seller On Fb Marketplace Sold My Wife A "2011" Chevy Impala In Cash, Turns Out It's A 2006. She Asked To Return Or Offset Cost, Seller Blocked Her Everywhere. (nd, Usa)

Location: North Dakota

I was at work, so I don't know the exact details of the exchange, and the only evidence we have is a screenshot of the listing title (including one pic of car) and a text from the seller admitting it was a "miss type" (sic) and that he was selling the car for his brother and he didn't even look at the title. He basically asserted it's our fault for taking the listing at face value and blocked her and deleted the listing. I only got this info after calling & texting him from my phone, and I only have that screenshot because my wife shared the listing with me before it was removed.

Car is in our possession and we need to register and insure it ASAP but we are assuming this makes our case much weaker, as though we are accepting the outcome even though we now know the truth, which we aren't. We told the seller we would accept the car if he refunded $400 (she paid $3500) to get it closer to its true value, or we would happily return it. He sent me a phone number, presumably his brother's, and told me to deal with him... but we bought it from him, so I don't really want to muddy the waters with other parties.

Anyway, is this fraud? If it is, is it worth our time to go to small claims or file a police report or anything along those lines, or is this just a hard lesson learned?

Side note, we actually have a mutual friend with the seller, and called him to ask about this guy, and our mutual friend said he knows him from the "car community" and that he'd hang out with him but never do business with him, so it sounds like he has a bit of a reputation for swindling people.