Warning if you are selling a car!

[paul.latham]

This may be stupid? (everybody knows that) but please read.

We advertised my wife's Audi TT on eBay and Autotrader. It s now sold.

HOWEVER my wife has had a letter from Surrey police with intending prosecution for causing an accident and driving away from the accident.

This was on the m25 (when she did own the car).

Her car has been cloned. Where did they get the number plate from? Well on eBay and Autotrader I put pictures with the number plate on!!!
Never again.

We are guilty till we can prove we are innocent.
My wife was at home on her own at the time of the accident.
She has never driven on the m25 in her life.

We now have video footage of the accident and it shows its not me or the wife.
The police now say who did we lend the car to. It's our responsibility to prove who was driving the car!!!

Lucky for us the clone car has 2 exhausts silver mirrors different wheels and doesn't have the custom White/black interior so we can prove its not our car.

But if it was the same model and colour it would be even harder to prove!!!

I WOULD SUGGEST EVERYONE GETS CCTV AT HOME TO PROVE THE CAR WAS IN THE GARAGE AT THE TIME OF ANY INCODENT!

Worst part is I sell cctv amongst other things and didn't have it at home??? DOH ???

[Martin S]

Sorry to hear this....tho good point made on selling a car...you see loads of cars for sale that dont cover up the number plate.......and to be honest if i hadn't read this i properly wouldn't cover one up.....glad you got it sorted...martin

[Matth93]

I'm glad you have managed to prove it wasn't you.
There was talk of things like this on Facebook the other day and yes I can see the point showing number plates on adverts / pics on the internet, but anyone can see your no plate at anytime the car is out on the road so if they wanted to pick a reg for a similar car all they would have to do is spot one driving around and copy that. The other thing is where are they getting the plates made as you need logbook and other I.d to get them. The way I see it is if they really want to clone your car they will and there's not much you can do other than drive around with no number plates on your car and that's just going to cause a whole new problem!

[Dick]

Yep allways cover the plate. The thing is now they ask for the reg number so they can hpi the car so not so easy. We say if your that interested do it when you view the car as we have allready done it and a copy is hear. You say that its up to you to prove you was not driving and to tell the bib who was. Wrong its for them to prove you was its that simple. Been there done it.

[Dick]

They sometimes ask for the reg or vin number never give these

[Wingco]

Great post Paul,
Never thought about covering a number plate up before selling it, so will do in the future. I just about to sell my son's car so this has come at the right moment for me.

As for number plates, Matt is right but you can buy them on the net easy with out any paper work at all. I sell number plates and its a mine field and a big fine if we do it wrong.

[DJ.]

Some very interesting points there

[steve m]

Hope you get it resolved, soon, and as for no plates, you can buy them on ebay, and no proof required

[Fury1630]

Hope you get it resolved, soon, and as for no plates, you can buy them on ebay, and no proof required

You buy them on the net, they make them outside the UK (often Ireland) & post them in.

As usual the law is an ass & punishes the law-abiding with more red tape while not impeding the law breakers at all.

[paul.latham]

All sorted now. Letter from the police saying it wasn't us.
Thank goodness the clone car was a Quattro and not the tfsi model we had.
That made it easy to say look it's not our car.
Different wheels, door mirrors and exhausts!