I purchased a car thats been cloned...

wgl2014

Sorry if I've missed it somewhere but....

OP - Had the VIN been altered on the car you bought to match the fake V5?

facade

You do wonder where the fake V5 comes from, that has all the info of a genuine vehicle. Maybe they visit the genuine one where it is for sale, and take a copy of the V5, then simply register online to a mail drop and pick up a nice fresh V5?

AndyMc.....

facade wrote: »

You do wonder where the fake V5 comes from, that has all the info of a genuine vehicle. Maybe they visit the genuine one where it is for sale, and take a copy of the V5, then simply register online to a mail drop and pick up a nice fresh V5?

They come from the dvla same as they have done for years.

movilogo

He wanted £20,000 cash and £9700 bank transfer

I find it surprising that someone can pay that much cash to an individual (not dealer) for car. :eek: Alarm bell should have been ringing when seller wanted that much amount in cash.

AdrianC

rajeshk4u wrote: »

What could OP have done differently?

Turn that question around...

Why did the OP drive from Luton to Wigan to buy THIS particular car?
Simple. Because he thought it was underpriced...

And he was right. It was underpriced. He paid <£30k for it, despite it having been for sale recently for 50% more than that.
He just didn't think about why that might be, and why the vendor might be so insistent on a large part of the purchase price being a very large pile of used notes.


EVERYTHING about this deal should have screamed "RUN AWAY!", but the OP didn't look further than the apparently excellent price.

movilogo

Why did the OP drive from Luton to Wigan to buy THIS particular car?

Luton itself is a dodgy place with many scams happening there. A lot of businesses on Luton happen on cash transactions only (usually run by particular community).

So, if OP belongs to such group asking for large cash for a transaction may not sound unusual to him/her.

JackeeBoy

If he paid the individual partly by credit card, would he be able to get his money back from the bank?

samy4127

Luton itself is a dodgy place with many scams happening there. A lot of businesses on Luton happen on cash transactions only (usually run by particular community).

So, if OP belongs to such group asking for large cash for a transaction may not sound unusual to him/her.

This was actually a Christmas surprise for my wife as I wanted to replace her car.

Turn that question around...

Why did the OP drive from Luton to Wigan to buy THIS particular car?
Simple. Because he thought it was underpriced...

And he was right. It was underpriced. He paid <£30k for it, despite it having been for sale recently for 50% more than that.
He just didn't think about why that might be, and why the vendor might be so insistent on a large part of the purchase price being a very large pile of used notes.


EVERYTHING about this deal should have screamed "RUN AWAY!", but the OP didn't look further than the apparently excellent price.

I already viewed another one before that for £32k but it was higher mileage and had scratches. I know the prices for this car. Glass Valuation priced the vehicle at £30,254 for the spec and mileage.

I find it surprising that someone can pay that much cash to an individual (not dealer) for car. Alarm bell should have been ringing when seller wanted that much amount in cash.

I've sold a few cars before years back where someone bought cash to my house and we are talking around £40k, but I took it to the bank with the guy where it was properly counted and verified before he took the car away. Happy ending.

The car I purchased has the cloned VIN on the windscreen and Mercedes VIN Sticker placed around the car.

He gave 5-10 documents of Mercedes receipts and invoices and inspection documents all with matching details of a cloned car.

The v5 document paper is real but fake details have been printed on the genuine document, even the v5 watermark is there with its genuine v5 serial number.

I only noticed when I tried to tax the car, the new keepers slip had document number of 11 digits and it should be 12 digits and the gov website could not find it.

I've had 12 cars since 2012 and this is the first scam I've ever experienced of this sort.

I am vigilant and I am not stupid but I am unfortunate. I worked hard for this and was left in tears. I did 3 HPI checks from different websites. Got history print out from Mercedes and even searched the property on google street view beforehand.

The private investigator is at work with his bodyguard, I am not letting this go until I catch him and get my money back whether it's next month, 6 months later, not giving up.

I am now working to trace other victims of this same scam that happened to them.

samy4127

OP - Had the VIN been altered on the car you bought to match the fake V5?

Yes that is correct :-(

samy4127

I'm a bit confused about what has happened here, the seller had a Mercedes with a different identity but did they have a genuine V5 for the car that had been cloned? I don't see how the V5 passed the HPI check but immediately failed with the DVLA.

They used a genuine v5c serial number which matches a genuine number plate of a cloned car.

But the document reference and keeper details are fake meaning you cannot claim title.