Farcical experience following my plates being cloned.
Discussion
I was recently selling my car (2010 Audi S4). I normally cover the number-plate when selling vehicles to avoid people cloning the plates but thought as the MOT history was nice and clean I'd leave it visible (what are the chances right of it actually happening right?)
|https://thumbsnap.com/p2fSfB5Z[/url]
(The car in question)
Cue two weeks after I've sold the car I get a total of three fines through the post for driving in bus-lanes in Glasgow (caught on camera whilst I still owned the vehicle). Now I live in Bristol, and have never had the pleasure of visiting Glasgow, so unless I've been donning that mysterious African mask I found in the river and getting up to forgotten mischief at night à la Stanley Ipkiss in the sensational 1994 hit The Mask, I start to suspect foul play is afoot!
[url]
First things first I drop the new owner a message so he knows that some naughty buggers are razzing around the other side of our nation with the same plates as the car he's recently bought. Next I appealed the fines with Glasgow Council. And finally I dropped the police a call on 101 as last thing I want is for a serious crime to have been commited by the folks with the car with cloned plates and I get a friendly visit from a squadron of coppers at 5am.
All this has happened in past 24 hours.
Call number 1 Spoke to a chap at Glasgow police who told me that someone would be calling me back to discuss.
Call number 2 Missed the call but someone did call me back from Glasgow police. He left a message saying that I should tell Glasgow council and that if I "thought it was a police matter" I should go in person to my local Avon and Somerset police station.
Correct me if I'm wrong but somebody driving around with cloned plates on their potentially stolen car does seem like a police matter to me.
Call number 3 I called 101 again, asked for Avon and Somerset police and spoke to a friendly woman. I explained what had happened, what Glasgow police had said and that I wasn't comfortable going into a police station as I am a frontline healthcare worker who sees patients who are COVID-19 positive and traipsing into a police station could take half their staff out. The woman confirmed that I definately shouldn't go into any police station but also pointed out that the crime has occurred in Glasgow, NOT Bristol so I should call Glasgow police back and insist on reporting it to them.
At this point I think f
k it, I've got a newborn and can't be arsed with chasing it up anymore.
Call number 4 I get another call from Glasgow police. The bloke tells me that I do need to report it to Avon and Somerset Police, that I can do this via 101 and that I cannot do it with Glasgow police as I am resident in England and there are different laws. He says if I report it to Avon and Somerset police they can then pass the information on to their scottish counterparts via an official process.
Call number 5 I call avon and somerset police again. I tell the woman what the Glaswegian copper has said. She says this is absolute nonsense and she will personally call them to tell them that as the crime occurred in their area, they need to log it. She also tells me I have duty to inform the DVLA.
Call number 6 I call the DVLA. They tell me I have to inform them in writing, by post. I guess they don't have computers with email in Swansea yet.
Anyone else had similar experiences? Granted when my Triumph bike got nicked I didn't get a visit (or anything other than a 30 second message left on my phone) but at least I managed to report that a crime had occured.
|https://thumbsnap.com/p2fSfB5Z[/url](The car in question)
Cue two weeks after I've sold the car I get a total of three fines through the post for driving in bus-lanes in Glasgow (caught on camera whilst I still owned the vehicle). Now I live in Bristol, and have never had the pleasure of visiting Glasgow, so unless I've been donning that mysterious African mask I found in the river and getting up to forgotten mischief at night à la Stanley Ipkiss in the sensational 1994 hit The Mask, I start to suspect foul play is afoot!
[url]
First things first I drop the new owner a message so he knows that some naughty buggers are razzing around the other side of our nation with the same plates as the car he's recently bought. Next I appealed the fines with Glasgow Council. And finally I dropped the police a call on 101 as last thing I want is for a serious crime to have been commited by the folks with the car with cloned plates and I get a friendly visit from a squadron of coppers at 5am.
All this has happened in past 24 hours.
Call number 1 Spoke to a chap at Glasgow police who told me that someone would be calling me back to discuss.
Call number 2 Missed the call but someone did call me back from Glasgow police. He left a message saying that I should tell Glasgow council and that if I "thought it was a police matter" I should go in person to my local Avon and Somerset police station.
Correct me if I'm wrong but somebody driving around with cloned plates on their potentially stolen car does seem like a police matter to me.
Call number 3 I called 101 again, asked for Avon and Somerset police and spoke to a friendly woman. I explained what had happened, what Glasgow police had said and that I wasn't comfortable going into a police station as I am a frontline healthcare worker who sees patients who are COVID-19 positive and traipsing into a police station could take half their staff out. The woman confirmed that I definately shouldn't go into any police station but also pointed out that the crime has occurred in Glasgow, NOT Bristol so I should call Glasgow police back and insist on reporting it to them.
At this point I think f
k it, I've got a newborn and can't be arsed with chasing it up anymore.Call number 4 I get another call from Glasgow police. The bloke tells me that I do need to report it to Avon and Somerset Police, that I can do this via 101 and that I cannot do it with Glasgow police as I am resident in England and there are different laws. He says if I report it to Avon and Somerset police they can then pass the information on to their scottish counterparts via an official process.
Call number 5 I call avon and somerset police again. I tell the woman what the Glaswegian copper has said. She says this is absolute nonsense and she will personally call them to tell them that as the crime occurred in their area, they need to log it. She also tells me I have duty to inform the DVLA.
Call number 6 I call the DVLA. They tell me I have to inform them in writing, by post. I guess they don't have computers with email in Swansea yet.
Anyone else had similar experiences? Granted when my Triumph bike got nicked I didn't get a visit (or anything other than a 30 second message left on my phone) but at least I managed to report that a crime had occured.
MrSanti said:
I was recently selling my car (2010 Audi S4). I normally cover the number-plate when selling vehicles to avoid people cloning the plates but thought as the MOT history was nice and clean I'd leave it visible (what are the chances right of it actually happening right?)
|https://thumbsnap.com/p2fSfB5Z[/url]
(The car in question)
Cue two weeks after I've sold the car I get a total of three fines through the post for driving in bus-lanes in Glasgow (caught on camera whilst I still owned the vehicle). Now I live in Bristol, and have never had the pleasure of visiting Glasgow, so unless I've been donning that mysterious African mask I found in the river and getting up to forgotten mischief at night à la Stanley Ipkiss in the sensational 1994 hit The Mask, I start to suspect foul play is afoot!
[url]
First things first I drop the new owner a message so he knows that some naughty buggers are razzing around the other side of our nation with the same plates as the car he's recently bought. Next I appealed the fines with Glasgow Council. And finally I dropped the police a call on 101 as last thing I want is for a serious crime to have been commited by the folks with the car with cloned plates and I get a friendly visit from a squadron of coppers at 5am.
All this has happened in past 24 hours.
Call number 1 Spoke to a chap at Glasgow police who told me that someone would be calling me back to discuss.
Call number 2 Missed the call but someone did call me back from Glasgow police. He left a message saying that I should tell Glasgow council and that if I "thought it was a police matter" I should go in person to my local Avon and Somerset police station.
Correct me if I'm wrong but somebody driving around with cloned plates on their potentially stolen car does seem like a police matter to me.
Call number 3 I called 101 again, asked for Avon and Somerset police and spoke to a friendly woman. I explained what had happened, what Glasgow police had said and that I wasn't comfortable going into a police station as I am a frontline healthcare worker who sees patients who are COVID-19 positive and traipsing into a police station could take half their staff out. The woman confirmed that I definately shouldn't go into any police station but also pointed out that the crime has occurred in Glasgow, NOT Bristol so I should call Glasgow police back and insist on reporting it to them.
At this point I think fk it, I've got a newborn and can't be arsed with chasing it up anymore.
Call number 4 I get another call from Glasgow police. The bloke tells me that I do need to report it to Avon and Somerset Police, that I can do this via 101 and that I cannot do it with Glasgow police as I am resident in England and there are different laws. He says if I report it to Avon and Somerset police they can then pass the information on to their scottish counterparts via an official process.
Call number 5 I call avon and somerset police again. I tell the woman what the Glaswegian copper has said. She says this is absolute nonsense and she will personally call them to tell them that as the crime occurred in their area, they need to log it. She also tells me I have duty to inform the DVLA.
Call number 6 I call the DVLA. They tell me I have to inform them in writing, by post. I guess they don't have computers with email in Swansea yet.
Anyone else had similar experiences? Granted when my Triumph bike got nicked I didn't get a visit (or anything other than a 30 second message left on my phone) but at least I managed to report that a crime had occured.
Why do you think the plates were cloned?|https://thumbsnap.com/p2fSfB5Z[/url](The car in question)
Cue two weeks after I've sold the car I get a total of three fines through the post for driving in bus-lanes in Glasgow (caught on camera whilst I still owned the vehicle). Now I live in Bristol, and have never had the pleasure of visiting Glasgow, so unless I've been donning that mysterious African mask I found in the river and getting up to forgotten mischief at night à la Stanley Ipkiss in the sensational 1994 hit The Mask, I start to suspect foul play is afoot!
[url]
First things first I drop the new owner a message so he knows that some naughty buggers are razzing around the other side of our nation with the same plates as the car he's recently bought. Next I appealed the fines with Glasgow Council. And finally I dropped the police a call on 101 as last thing I want is for a serious crime to have been commited by the folks with the car with cloned plates and I get a friendly visit from a squadron of coppers at 5am.
All this has happened in past 24 hours.
Call number 1 Spoke to a chap at Glasgow police who told me that someone would be calling me back to discuss.
Call number 2 Missed the call but someone did call me back from Glasgow police. He left a message saying that I should tell Glasgow council and that if I "thought it was a police matter" I should go in person to my local Avon and Somerset police station.
Correct me if I'm wrong but somebody driving around with cloned plates on their potentially stolen car does seem like a police matter to me.
Call number 3 I called 101 again, asked for Avon and Somerset police and spoke to a friendly woman. I explained what had happened, what Glasgow police had said and that I wasn't comfortable going into a police station as I am a frontline healthcare worker who sees patients who are COVID-19 positive and traipsing into a police station could take half their staff out. The woman confirmed that I definately shouldn't go into any police station but also pointed out that the crime has occurred in Glasgow, NOT Bristol so I should call Glasgow police back and insist on reporting it to them.
At this point I think f
k it, I've got a newborn and can't be arsed with chasing it up anymore.Call number 4 I get another call from Glasgow police. The bloke tells me that I do need to report it to Avon and Somerset Police, that I can do this via 101 and that I cannot do it with Glasgow police as I am resident in England and there are different laws. He says if I report it to Avon and Somerset police they can then pass the information on to their scottish counterparts via an official process.
Call number 5 I call avon and somerset police again. I tell the woman what the Glaswegian copper has said. She says this is absolute nonsense and she will personally call them to tell them that as the crime occurred in their area, they need to log it. She also tells me I have duty to inform the DVLA.
Call number 6 I call the DVLA. They tell me I have to inform them in writing, by post. I guess they don't have computers with email in Swansea yet.
Anyone else had similar experiences? Granted when my Triumph bike got nicked I didn't get a visit (or anything other than a 30 second message left on my phone) but at least I managed to report that a crime had occured.
MrSanti said:
Call number 6 I call the DVLA. They tell me I have to inform them in writing, by post. I guess they don't have computers with email in Swansea yet.
They do have computers and email. We are just service users NOT customers in their eyes so why make things easier for us? Companies who pay for DVLA information access to databases etc get MUCH better customer service and help.MrSanti said:
This is what I tried to do but they said the crime hadn't happened in the local area so I had to call Glasgow.
That's utter rubbish. Call them back. The crime of using a cloned vehicle vehicle may have happened in Glasgow but to report your plate as cloned, go through your local force. 
HantsRat said:
MrSanti said:
This is what I tried to do but they said the crime hadn't happened in the local area so I had to call Glasgow.
That's utter rubbish. Call them back. The crime of using a cloned vehicle vehicle may have happened in Glasgow but to report your plate as cloned, go through your local force. Sorry to hear of your troubles OP.
I had a similar thing with an X5 I bought for my wife a couple of years ago.
Within 6 weeks of buying the old owner calls up to let me know he'd received a speeding fine from somewhere in north London at 3am! He had already at that point responded to them saying he had sold it to us.
When we received the NIP I wrote back to the safety camera partnership and said it wasn't us and suggested the plate had been cloned.
They responded to say I had to declare who was driving so I had to respond again citing it wasn't our car so cannot possibly know who was driving. They responded (via email by now as I had provided it on earlier letter) asking for detailed images of our car which I took and emailed to them.
About a week or so later I get an email back stating that they'd reviewed the photos and it was definitely our car. Even though we only had a grainy B&W photo from them we could clearly see the car in their photo had silver factory roofbars whereas ours didn't. Ours also had a number of stickers on the rear screen and a small but noticeable area of rust on the rear.
We responded to inform them of such and informed them that we had also called our local police and reported our car as being cloned (the person I spoke to on the phone was very understanding). Another week went by and we got another email back stating they had re-reviewed the evidence and concluded that it was not our car in the photo and should disregard the NIP!! A few days after that we also got a letter from the police stating that they'd registered our plate as being cloned and to keep this letter in the car should we get stopped by the police.
It felt very much like their first response was a standard response to put off everyone who was just trying it on so if they do that first time (and it wasn't your car!) then persevere!
Good luck!
I had a similar thing with an X5 I bought for my wife a couple of years ago.
Within 6 weeks of buying the old owner calls up to let me know he'd received a speeding fine from somewhere in north London at 3am! He had already at that point responded to them saying he had sold it to us.
When we received the NIP I wrote back to the safety camera partnership and said it wasn't us and suggested the plate had been cloned.
They responded to say I had to declare who was driving so I had to respond again citing it wasn't our car so cannot possibly know who was driving. They responded (via email by now as I had provided it on earlier letter) asking for detailed images of our car which I took and emailed to them.
About a week or so later I get an email back stating that they'd reviewed the photos and it was definitely our car. Even though we only had a grainy B&W photo from them we could clearly see the car in their photo had silver factory roofbars whereas ours didn't. Ours also had a number of stickers on the rear screen and a small but noticeable area of rust on the rear.
We responded to inform them of such and informed them that we had also called our local police and reported our car as being cloned (the person I spoke to on the phone was very understanding). Another week went by and we got another email back stating they had re-reviewed the evidence and concluded that it was not our car in the photo and should disregard the NIP!! A few days after that we also got a letter from the police stating that they'd registered our plate as being cloned and to keep this letter in the car should we get stopped by the police.
It felt very much like their first response was a standard response to put off everyone who was just trying it on so if they do that first time (and it wasn't your car!) then persevere!
Good luck!
QuattroDave said:
I had a similar thing with an X5 I bought for my wife a couple of years ago.
Ha yeah, reading your experience does sound rather familiar. Since my original post I've had Glasgow council respond to me saying "To allow me to consider this matter further, please supply the following.
 Documentation supporting the circumstances presented by you. I would advise that a crime
reference number is not suitable proof of the incident you have advised. You would need to
supply documentary evidence from Police Scotland regarding the incident and include date and
time. This can be emailed from you or Police Scotland to (Glasgow council email)
This information is required before 29/01/2021. Failure to provide the required documentation will result in
the issue of a Charge Certificate, which will increase the amount owed by 50% of the original charge. If
this increased charge is not paid within a further 14 days, the Charge Certificate will be passed to the
Council’s debt recovery agents for enforcement.
Please note that documentation received out with the timescales given, may not be considered.
Responsibility rests with you to ensure that the correct documentation is received by 29/01/2021.
Glasgow City Council cannot be held responsible for any delays caused by Royal Mail."
I called Glasgow council and spoke to a helpful lady who told me to respond to the email (from them) explaining how Police/DVLA weren't being helpful so I've responded outlining my frustrating experience/explaining my circumstances and hopefully they'll drop it.
I find these kind of things dead frustrating, especially dealing with the DVLA. I know this is semi irrelevant but I've changed cars twice in the past few months and both times I've double paid the DVLA for road tax for the month. I paid £27.50 for road tax for the Audi S4 for January despite selling it on the first of the month and then paid £27.50 for January for the new car I bought. If the DVLA think I'm going to go and buy an envelope and stamp and post them a letter saying what I've already said on the phone AND in webchat then they're dreaming. They are literally the vehicle licencing agency, the fact that there is a car with cloned plates is their concern and I'm not going to go out of my way because they won't do their job properly.
Some years ago a policeman friend of mine told me about a poor bloke in Cornwall, who had a ploce raid at 3am because his 911 had been involved in a series of armed robberies in West Mercia.
He spent the best part of the next day in police custody, and was finally allowed home later after his solicitor had managed to convince them that he was actually in Cornwall as was the car.
A couple of months later he was taken into custody again. And released without charge.
After his third arrest, he made an official complaint. His car had been cloned.
What would happen if he had lived local to the post office raids ?
He spent the best part of the next day in police custody, and was finally allowed home later after his solicitor had managed to convince them that he was actually in Cornwall as was the car.
A couple of months later he was taken into custody again. And released without charge.
After his third arrest, he made an official complaint. His car had been cloned.
What would happen if he had lived local to the post office raids ?
Same thing happened to me, it happens all the time from autotrader yet you'll still get people saying it's a waste of time blanking plates and "might put someone off"
I'd rather put someone off than deal with the hassle again.
Mine was a dart charge, I covered myself printing off work calendars and had CCTV of my car coming on site that day, plus security logs of me scanning in and out of buildings.
I reported it to DART first , then the police. Police said there's little they can do .... It's pretty common unfortunately just cover yourself now and sit back you've done everything you can.
I'd rather put someone off than deal with the hassle again.
Mine was a dart charge, I covered myself printing off work calendars and had CCTV of my car coming on site that day, plus security logs of me scanning in and out of buildings.
I reported it to DART first , then the police. Police said there's little they can do .... It's pretty common unfortunately just cover yourself now and sit back you've done everything you can.
Pit Pony said:
Some years ago a policeman friend of mine told me about a poor bloke in Cornwall, who had a ploce raid at 3am because his 911 had been involved in a series of armed robberies in West Mercia.
He spent the best part of the next day in police custody, and was finally allowed home later after his solicitor had managed to convince them that he was actually in Cornwall as was the car.
A couple of months later he was taken into custody again. And released without charge.
After his third arrest, he made an official complaint. His car had been cloned.
What would happen if he had lived local to the post office raids ?
You would think the police would ask what sort of armed robber would use his own Porsche 911 when committing the crimes. He spent the best part of the next day in police custody, and was finally allowed home later after his solicitor had managed to convince them that he was actually in Cornwall as was the car.
A couple of months later he was taken into custody again. And released without charge.
After his third arrest, he made an official complaint. His car had been cloned.
What would happen if he had lived local to the post office raids ?
Sorry to hear this OP. Reminds me of a similar experience from about a decade ago. Far less serious though!
I was once stopped by an officer here in York who looked round my car, and then asked me if I had committed a hit and run on a jewellers somewhere down south.
M car was for sale on AT at the time. It was a BMW 3 series. The criminals had cloned my plate and attached it to a Defender to smash the shop.
I said it wasn’t me. He said he’d take the marker off my plate so I wouldn’t get stopped again, but it may take a few days so may get stopped again.
Throughly nice chap he was.
I was once stopped by an officer here in York who looked round my car, and then asked me if I had committed a hit and run on a jewellers somewhere down south.
M car was for sale on AT at the time. It was a BMW 3 series. The criminals had cloned my plate and attached it to a Defender to smash the shop.
I said it wasn’t me. He said he’d take the marker off my plate so I wouldn’t get stopped again, but it may take a few days so may get stopped again.
Throughly nice chap he was.
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