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Cloned Vehicle - insurers to chase us for money!
Comments
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So have I got this right...
Car A is stolen to order.
Criminals already have genuine car B with its real documents, keys etc.
They clone A to match B's details.
They sell A using B's documents.
Criminals still have the real B, but no documents, but do have buyers money!!
Criminals ask DVLA for replacement "lost" docs for real B. repeat!!!
They never have car B.0 -
They never have car B.
????
I'm giving up trying to understand these things.
Let's hope we can just learn something from this...not sure what exactly, as there doesn't seem any way of avoiding being the victim here, as even BMW found out!!How's it going, AKA, Nutwatch? - 12 month spends to date = 2.60% of current retirement "pot" (as at end May 2025)0 -
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I don't know what's confusing you.
I assume how the cloners get the documents for car B.
Surely if you request copy documents for a car to a different address or claim to be the newly registered keeper DVLA write to the previous registered address to confirm the change.Kate short for Bob.
Alphabet thread High Priestess of all things unsavoury
Tesla was a genius.0 -
I assume how the cloners get the documents for car B.
Surely if you request copy documents for a car to a different address or claim to be the newly registered keeper DVLA write to the previous registered address to confirm the change.
They should write but it's easy to find an in trade car.0 -
They should write but it's easy to find an in trade car.
I don't know how it all works but since we've found out that our vehicle was cloned I have been looking into it more.
Surely the people who are doing the cloning must have a contact with someone who has access to the original vehicle otherwise how would they know all of the VIN details?? Surely the police should start there.
As far as I can see online this is becoming a very wide spread and common thing so surely some extra security needs to be put in place somewhere, I'm thinking the DVLA should be taking more responsibility. I'm guessing that the log book we saw was dodgy so either they managed to get the same info as whats on the original V5, in which case how did they get that or the numbers do not match up and the DVLA still issued the log book to us when they shouldn't have.
That may be a simplistic way of looking at it but something definitely needs to be done!0 -
I don't know how it all works but since we've found out that our vehicle was cloned I have been looking into it more.
Surely the people who are doing the cloning must have a contact with someone who has access to the original vehicle otherwise how would they know all of the VIN details?? Surely the police should start there.
As far as I can see online this is becoming a very wide spread and common thing so surely some extra security needs to be put in place somewhere, I'm thinking the DVLA should be taking more responsibility. I'm guessing that the log book we saw was dodgy so either they managed to get the same info as whats on the original V5, in which case how did they get that or the numbers do not match up and the DVLA still issued the log book to us when they shouldn't have.
That may be a simplistic way of looking at it but something definitely needs to be done!
Just find a vehicle for sale and in trade and apply for a log book. Once you've got the paperwork go and nick a similar car.0 -
Surely the people who are doing the cloning must have a contact with someone who has access to the original vehicle otherwise how would they know all of the VIN details?? Surely the police should start there.
Just walk down your street or local supermarket car park. The VIN number is on display at the bottom of the windscreen of all modern cars.Just find a vehicle for sale and in trade and apply for a log book. Once you've got the paperwork go and nick a similar car.
But surely a replacement log book would go to the address of the last registered keeper and not to you the potential thief?0 -
Just walk down your street or local supermarket car park. The VIN number is on display at the bottom of the windscreen of all modern cars.
But surely a replacement log book would go to the address of the last registered keeper and not to you the potential thief?
Not if you claim to be the new keeper on the V62.0 -
Looking for advice again!
So a year and 2 months on from my original post we have today received a letter from a solicitor working on behalf of BMW Stratstone to claim the cost of the vehicle we now own, this is how much they say they are out of pocket because the insurer of the cloned vehicle had claimed the stolen vehicle back.
They have said we need to pay the £22k+ costs in the next 14 days or we will be taken to court. As someone who has never been in trouble or owed anyone money this has worried me terribly.
They say that in the contract we signed with them, we had signed to say we were the owners of the vehicle and had the right to sell it but we didn't because it was stolen so we have broken the contract.
Obviously I can see where the are coming from but at the time we believed we were the genuine owners of the car, BMW were only able to find out it was a clone but stripping it which obviously we couldn't do.
We collected the vehicle from the address on the log book, (I realise now this may have been fake but how would we have known!), we checked the vin number on the log book against the one of the engine, we did all the online checks and were able to check all the service history online as we had the vin number. Again I realise this was all false info but if BMW didn't know this, how would we? In all honesty if I had know it was cloned I would not have take it to a trader! We also paid most of the money into the bank account of the sellers partner, or so we thought.
We realise we were duped but we did not intentionally dupe BMW, we will obviously take legal advice on this but I wondered what you all thought about where we stand with this?
Thanks
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