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

custardy

D_hickles wrote: »

Hi,

What was the outcome of this? We have just had a very similar situation. The car we purchased a couple of weeks ago was a stolen car that had been cloned to look like another car identical. We did all the correct checks and everything seemed to tally up, I even rang the DVLA to confirm the details were correct when I couldn’t register as a new keeper of the car online and they confirmed it was all legitimate and that I had been given an old logbook so would need to apply for a new one. It wasn’t until I went into the post office to tax it and fill out an application for a new log book that they couldn’t find the reference numbers and it turned out the v5 was fake, we ran a diagnostic on the ECU and it came back with a completely different VIN number to what was on the car and said fake log book. Police came and recovered it, reported it to Barclays as we did a bank transfer and they’ve frozen the sellers account. However 2 weeks on and I haven’t been able to get any updates on if there’s a chance we will get the car or money back - policeman seemed to think as the original owner had been paid out that we may be offered the car back at a low price by the insurance company..

The car isnt yours to get back. likely belongs to an insurer who paid out on it
What they consider a low price and you will likely differ.

Dippypud

Takmon wrote: »

When your spending thousands of pounds on a car i think it's worthwhile spending the time checking everything is correct. Checking that the details on the V5C match the car is a pretty basic check that everyone should carry out. The VIN numbers are designed to be checked so it's not difficult to look at each one and take a picture and then input this into the HPI website.

Here are the HPI guarantee terms and conditions:



All that seems pretty reasonable to me and then you have to pay through the banking system using a bank transfer for example.

If someone followed all those steps i would be willing to be good money they wouldn't lose out due to a cloned vehicle.

Every time someone posts on here who have lost out haven't made reasonable checks before handing over large sums of money.

Not all VIN's are accessible to members of the public, some are electronic and are held in the ECU software within the vehicle ...

Hermione_Granger

Dippypud wrote: »

Not all VIN's are accessible to members of the public, some are electronic and are held in the ECU software within the vehicle ...

Possibly for some old vehicles but any vehicle that has type approval for use in the UK and which was registered after 1980 must have a visible VIN data plate.

Money_Grabber13579

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

Possibly for some old vehicles but any vehicle that has type approval for use in the UK and which was registered after 1980 must have a visible VIN data plate.

Yes, but the point being made was that to qualify for the HPI guarantee (assuming this is true, I haven’t read it), you need to check all of the VINs on the car. If some of these can’t be found or read without the use of specialist tools, then the terms of the guarantee can’t be met and so might not pay out.

Arklight

Money_Grabber13579 wrote: »

Yes, but the point being made was that to qualify for the HPI guarantee (assuming this is true, I haven’t read it), you need to check all of the VINs on the car. If some of these can’t be found or read without the use of specialist tools, then the terms of the guarantee can’t be met and so might not pay out.

Someone on another thread said that he'd worked in the industry, had seen many people try and claim on the HPI guarantee, but few succeed due to not being able to evidence having done all the checks.

The key failure points seem to be:

• You must check that all the VIN markings on the vehicle match each other and the corresponding V5 registration document.
  
• If you are buying the vehicle privately, you must buy it from the keeper, at the address shown on the V5. You must also check the identity of the seller.

It seems most people miss at least some of the VIN markings and can't prove they checked the identity of the seller enough to satisfy the claim.