Bought Stolen Car in Good Faith - what options I have? Pls help

Takmon

Deneb wrote: »

You are confusing cloned number plates with a cloned car. A car on cloned number plates will still have its genuine VIN, and the VIN will not match the plates.

A cloned car will have had its VIN altered to match the identity of the vehicle that the number plates purport it to be.

Sometimes this is very easy to spot if you know what you are supposed to be looking at, as one quick dirty method is just to stick a printed bit of paper over the original stamped VIN, and stick on very poor quality forged VIN labels. Unfortunately prospective purchasers aren't always that clued up, and if the false VIN matches what is on their HPI print, as far as they are concerned it passes muster.

At the other extreme are cars where the stamped VIN is a genuine and original stamping, carefully cut out of the donor car and grafted into the stolen car after removal of the stolen car's original VIN. Match that with quality forged VIN labels which are often difficult for an expert to determine at a glance, and sometimes even reprogramming of the electronic VIN stored in various ECUs on the vehicle, and you have a proper clone.

Yes the cloned car may be a perfect copy but you are still covered by the HPI check guarantee as long as you check the VIN and enter it online.
I have just checked the terms and conditions to confirm this and the only requirement is that you pay for it through a bank e.g. bank transfer, cheque etc. So the OP wouldn't have been covered in their situation but if they did actually do a real HPI check and followed the rules they wouldn't have been in this situation.

Deneb

Takmon wrote: »

Yes the cloned car may be a perfect copy but you are still covered by the HPI check guarantee as long as you check the VIN and enter it online.
I have just checked the terms and conditions to confirm this and the only requirement is that you pay for it through a bank e.g. bank transfer, cheque etc. So the OP wouldn't have been covered in their situation but if they did actually do a real HPI check and followed the rules they wouldn't have been in this situation.

Having spent much of my career recovering clones from innocent purchasers and dealing with both the victims and HPI, I can say with experience that HPI will very rarely cover the purchaser of a clone unless they have complied with very specific conditions and can irrefutably prove as much. The standard response is that the purchaser of the HPI check carried it out on the identity of a different vehicle to the one that they actually bought, therefore the guarantee doesn't apply to that vehicle!

The guarantee relates to the accuracy of the data held by HPI in relation to the vehicle whose identity has been supplied by the customer. Unless the victim has purchased the vehicle from a seller who are also an innocent and unwitting party to the transaction, the seller will almost always engineer the circumstances of the sale in such a way that the guarantee conditions and any goodwill on the part of HPI will never be met.

They don't do that with the intention of preventing the purchaser from availing themselves of the guarantee, but it is a consequence of the situations that the sellers create to minimise their risk of getting caught, which the purchasers unwittingly walk into head first, blinded by the deal that appears to have been presented to them!

The most obvious stumbling block is that the guarantee will not cover any losses arising from a cloned vehicle where any payment or part payment such as a deposit is paid in cash or by any method other than through the banking system. I never came across a single offender who was willing to accept payment by a method through which they could be traced, and buyers invariably fall over themselves to pay cash as requested because of the apparent bargain that they don't want to miss. The prospective buyers who aren't happy to do that walk away and don't actually need the guarantee

Jillcheesedoff

This has just happened to me done all the checks all came back clear we are absolutely distraught we have lost all are money and now we are at risk of losing are home as my husband works 40 miles away from home we had taken out a loan so have no means of buying back from the insurance company when these scumbags are doing this to hard working people it makes my blood boil I would be very interested in talking to you to see if any of the phone numbers match ?

Smellyonion

Horrible position to be in and to be fair to the OP, this could have happened to anyone. They did the necessary checks, hpi was clear and the price paid was not excessively below market value.

I would consider several Avenues:

Hpi checks normally offer some sort of insurance policy - check this route.

Your insurance company- odd situation,should they not have known it was stolen at the point of insurance on the same day? long shot.

Bank - go via the scammed route, withdrew money etc again long shot.

Tracking criminal down, stake out the house etc. If you purchased from a residential address, the must be some relationship to the criminal.

Takmon

Smellyonion wrote: »

Horrible position to be in and to be fair to the OP, this could have happened to anyone. They did the necessary checks, hpi was clear and the price paid was not excessively below market value.

If they carried out an official HPI check and followed their rules when paying they would have been fully covered for this. As Deneb summarised anyone who follows the payment rules of the guarantee will never lose out due to this.

It's only silly people who hand over large amounts of cash to pay for these cars that lose out.

Takmon

Jillcheesedoff wrote: »

This has just happened to me done all the checks all came back clear we are absolutely distraught we have lost all are money and now we are at risk of losing are home as my husband works 40 miles away from home we had taken out a loan so have no means of buying back from the insurance company when these scumbags are doing this to hard working people it makes my blood boil I would be very interested in talking to you to see if any of the phone numbers match ?

If you carried out an official HPI check and paid through the banking system then you won't lose anything. The only way you would lose out is if you went to a cheap alternative that didn't offer a guarantee when carrying out the check or if you were silly enough to pay in cash.

Arklight

Takmon wrote: »

If you carried out an official HPI check and paid through the banking system then you won't lose anything. The only way you would lose out is if you went to a cheap alternative that didn't offer a guarantee when carrying out the check or if you were silly enough to pay in cash.

Not very helpful.

Takmon

Arklight wrote: »

Not very helpful.

It seems it will be very helpful to all the people who are thinking of buying a car but don't realise the risk of this happening. I'm sure after reading this thread and reading my post it will make people think twice before buying a car in cash with a cheap "HPI" check.

DoaM

Arklight wrote: »

Not very helpful.

Pointless response which is Not very helpful. The post you quoted WAS helpful.

Deneb

Takmon wrote: »

If you carried out an official HPI check and paid through the banking system then you won't lose anything. The only way you would lose out is if you went to a cheap alternative that didn't offer a guarantee when carrying out the check or if you were silly enough to pay in cash.

Read the terms of the guarantee very carefully. There are also other conditions, such as having to check every VIN on the vehicle. How many prospective purchasers have researched how many locations that the VIN should be present on the vehicle they intend to buy, let alone being able to prove to the satisfaction of the guarantee that they did so! It also stipulates that the document reference on the V5C must be checked against the information held by HPI, and that any other features contained on the V5C must also be checked against the vehicle. So as well as make, model, colour, body type, this could also include the engine number etc.


How many people know where to find the engine number, and if they do a lot of vehicles nowdays require some dismantling of ancillary components or trim to actually get at it. Good luck with taking a photograph to prove to HPI that you checked it, sometimes I had to resort to a borescope.