Buying A Car - Cloned Vehicles
The resale of stolen and cloned vehicles has always been a problem on the second hand car market within the UK. The process of cloning vehicles has made it even more difficult for the unsuspecting car buyer purchasing a stolen vehicle. The problem is that cloning a vehicle means that all the checks that you would normally do can't always show you that the car you are looking at spending your hard earned cash on is actually a fraud.
Cloning is done by taking a stolen car and changing number plates, engine number and VIN numbers to match an existing legal car of the same make and model. The problem is that the buyer then finds it very difficult to identify this vehicle as stolen because it looks like a perfectly legitimate car. Unfortunately even HPi checks can't always pick up on cloned vehicles because according to their records the car details are all correct because they are actually checking another legitimate vehicle and not the one you are actually purchasing.
This poses somewhat of a problem for perspective car buyers. However help is at hand, this article will look at a few tips for the second hand car buyer in order to help them avoid cloned cars.
Always buy from the owners address or from the trader's garage. This can be difficult as some legitimate private second hand car sellers are often worried about showing cars at their home address. This is due to the fact that by giving out your address you could be giving a prospective thief the exact location of your car and could be giving them a guided tour of the car including security devices. Even with this in mind think very carefully before arranging to view a car at a neutral location as it leaves you with no come back if the car turns out to be lost or stolen.
Check all the documentation carefully and cross reference it with the numbers on the car. By taking time to look at the engine number and the VIN number carefully you can identify any tampering that may have taken place.
Another method that you can adopt is a new scheme being encouraged by Norfolk police to take a picture of the present owner next to the car. With the age of the camera phone upon us this should be very easy for most perspective buyers. The reasoning behind this method is that the photo could be used as evidence in court if the vehicle does turn out to be cloned. Norfolk police believe that legitimate owners will have no problem posing for a photo where as shady characters will run a mile.
In closing the second hand car market is a mine field but by following these few simple procedure you could save yourself thousands of pounds in the purchase of a vehicle that will be reposed by the police. If we all worked together when buying a second hand car then we could see a sharp decrease in stolen vehicles leading to a drop in car insurance claims and therefore it could lead to cheap car insurance for all of us.
