Has my car been cloned?
Discussion
Yesterday my son (21) received a cheque out of the blue from DVLA for a car tax refund. He has owned the car for 4 years and has not SORNed the car, or sold or scrapped it. The car has current tax, MOT and insurance. I suggested to be certain he double check the tax on the DVLA website, which he did, only to find that the car details were incorrect or unavailable. He rang DVLA who said there is an investigation and the car must not be used on public roads. The investigation may take 6 weeks. They would not tell him what the issue is. He needs the car to get to work etc, so the prospect of not being allowed to use it for 6 weeks is a real blow. Does anyone have any advice? Sounds to me as if it has been cloned, or someone has claimed scrappage or something like that? Does DVLA have authority to prevent a car being used whilst they conduct their investigation?
Torf said:
Yesterday my son (21) received a cheque out of the blue from DVLA for a car tax refund. He has owned the car for 4 years and has not SORNed the car, or sold or scrapped it. The car has current tax, MOT and insurance. I suggested to be certain he double check the tax on the DVLA website, which he did, only to find that the car details were incorrect or unavailable. He rang DVLA who said there is an investigation and the car must not be used on public roads. The investigation may take 6 weeks. They would not tell him what the issue is. He needs the car to get to work etc, so the prospect of not being allowed to use it for 6 weeks is a real blow. Does anyone have any advice? Sounds to me as if it has been cloned, or someone has claimed scrappage or something like that? Does DVLA have authority to prevent a car being used whilst they conduct their investigation?
Sounds like a criminal investigation, cloned vin's possible. Surely if the car has passed an MOT and roadworthy and identifiable as being under investigation he could drive it still.
Spinning it though, if something is a miss and ANPR isn't picking things up then maybe a driver of a vehicle under investigation could historically had done anything undetectable.
DaveA8 said:
By what power can the DVLA tell someone not to drive a car on the roads, I think I understand it is not taxed but I’d be asking a few more questions than just accepting at face value this.
It seems wholly unfair and almost a knee jerk reaction but I also get organisations such as the DVLA are very good at portraying their wish as law when that might not be the real situation.
I’d certainly call them back.
I’ll edit this to ask under what legal authority can they refuse to tax an otherwise taxable car, not just their view but the specific legislation, their desire or recommendation not to drive or refuse to tax might not be the actual position It seems wholly unfair and almost a knee jerk reaction but I also get organisations such as the DVLA are very good at portraying their wish as law when that might not be the real situation.
I’d certainly call them back.
If it were me I would return the cheque to DVLA by recorded delivery with a covering letter saying that I have not sold, SORNed or otherwise disposed of the car and am returning their cheque obviously sent in error.
I would carry the receipt / email for the purchase of the road tax and the MOT printout with me in the car.
I would carry the receipt / email for the purchase of the road tax and the MOT printout with me in the car.
I had (pretty much) exactly this a few months ago after having my previous car written off & transferring the private plate to my new car.
Circumstances may have been quite different but the outcome to me was similar.
Got a letter from DVLA telling me that I was no longer the owner, went online & did an online check & like you it said the details were not available & I couldn't tax the car when I tried.
End result (for me) was that someone had processed the above 2 transactions correctly & then for some reason someone else had processed the write off of the previous car again.
I was officially not the owner for that time & was therefore unable to tax the car.
Phoned DVLA & they came to the above conclusion and after a few weeks they issued another v5.
Circumstances may have been quite different but the outcome to me was similar.
Got a letter from DVLA telling me that I was no longer the owner, went online & did an online check & like you it said the details were not available & I couldn't tax the car when I tried.
End result (for me) was that someone had processed the above 2 transactions correctly & then for some reason someone else had processed the write off of the previous car again.
I was officially not the owner for that time & was therefore unable to tax the car.
Phoned DVLA & they came to the above conclusion and after a few weeks they issued another v5.
Torf said:
Just checked the MOT history website and it says vehicle details cannot be found. It was MOTd about 10 days ago! All very odd. As it seems the car is no longer taxed, should he now bank the DVLA cheque, or does that infer acceptance of the whole situation?
Not found is very odd, as my old cars that have presumably been scrapped are still visible on a search. I wouldn’t be banking any cheque till all this gets sorted out
I suggest contacting your insurance company.
They may know what's going on, and will probably have a direct contact to the DVLA.
If they don't know what's going on, you probably need to tell them what you know?
The inconvenience of whatever is happening may also be covered by your policy?
They may know what's going on, and will probably have a direct contact to the DVLA.
If they don't know what's going on, you probably need to tell them what you know?
The inconvenience of whatever is happening may also be covered by your policy?
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