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My husband did HPI check but I had a bad feeling about this and called the police, I gave them VIN number and registration number and they told me that they match and the car is fine. After that we went and bought it. Now I know I should have listened to my intuition.
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Could you please elaborate the "bad feeling"?
I wonder inspite of such feeling why you went ahead with purchase!
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It is difficult to say, it wasn't anything that the seller did or the car itself. I just had this feeling that something is wrong. When the check came clear and police assured me that the car is fine, and my husband absolutely loved the car, we decided to buyy it.
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Not asking this to add to your woes but, you say "- - - cloned the VIN number and registration so when we checked it it looked ok but in fact it had different VIN number than the one on the window. If the VIN numbers on the V5 and the car didn't match, how can that look OK?
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@monica
Sorry to say that you are very unlikely to recover any money from DVLA.
Recently there has been several discussion this forum about cloned cars.
You may contact fellow forum member "bazomis" who faced same fate as yours. He may guide you further on this process. If more & more affected people take this matter to MPs and media, govt. might accept to compensate innocent people somehow.
I still like to know what made you feel so suspicious that you called police before purchases! It seems so unusual. This will help many members here to detect fraud at an early stage before purchasing the vehicle.
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About the bad feeling, maybe it was the fact that for a 5/6 year old car it was in perfect condition. It had no scrached, marks nothing, you could still smell the leather. The seler told us that this is his second car and he did not use it that much and now he has to sell it because he can no longer afford having 2 cars. Also I was quite affraid to spend that much money on a car.
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It would be interesting to hear what car/ model you bought for £10000 and what the average price for a car of your type would be.
There was a woman on the telly the other night who had also got stung. She had bought a Mini Cooper for £6000 , which for the car shown looked too cheap to me.
Could it be, that your "bad feeling" was because you suspected the price of the car was too good to be true ?
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In view of the DVLA debacle (or printers whatever) they should open a dedicated freephone helpline and a web checking system for V5s.
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In view of the DVLA debacle (or printers whatever) they should open a dedicated freephone helpline and a web checking system for V5s.
PU,
That reflects the comment I made to Baz. There is no more reason in principle why the Government should compensate victims of V5 forgery than those of banknote forgery.
However, if there is an increasing problem with forged or stolen V5 forms then DVLA should be putting a process in place so that their authenticity can be checked. If there is any maladminstration for the Ombudsman to find it will be in that area.
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We bought Audi A6 2004 3.0 TDI quattro S-line. The price is fine but the car was in excellent condition that is why we liked it very much.
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The seller used one of the stolen V5 forms >>
1. So was the V5 number one of those listed by Honestjohn here:
www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/item.htm?id=36185
The price is fine but the car was in excellent condition that is why we liked it very much. >>
2. Do you mean it was a "bargain" for the condition?
3. Where was the seller dealing from, at home or at some other "public location"?
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Guys,
monica is the victim here, enough with the holier than thou -- "well you shouldnt have taken a bargain! no bargain is ever what it seems" because that's just nonsense.
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"well you shouldnt have taken a bargain! no bargain is ever what it seems" because that's just nonsense. >>
CraigP - you are the first to make that assumption.
Until then, all people had asked for was clarification of statements made by Monica.
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1. Not sure, we only found out about those stolen V5 forms on Monday. Police told us that this is a clone car.
2. You could say so, this model and age sells for around £10,000 but we have seen a few and none of them were in such a good condition.
3. Public location, I know this was our mistake and we should have sked him to meet at his house.
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One more thing, We got a full service history, recent MOT and 2 sets of keys with the car. Everything really looked fiine.
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1. Not sure, we only found out about those stolen V5 forms on Monday. >>
So can you confirm that the serial number is in the range quoted by HJ?
The reason I am asking that is on his thread, "bazomis" said the V5 serial number was NOT in that range. In other words, his was apparently a forged V5 number and not one of the stolen V5 numbers.
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I was looking for similar information as my friend was tricked this same way , now police left car with him but what will happen next , does any one know - if car belongs to insurance is there any way to negotiate the price with them ?
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Whether the V5c number is in range or not is really irrelevant because a V5c is just a piece of paper which is easily forged. I believe there were recently two MSc students in court for faking V5cs and cloning cars. I bet easily 50% if punters would be unable to spot a poor forged V5C. Similarly its very easy to clone a car - controls of reg plates is weak and its easy to change a VIN number. The car you were checking with police was a genuine car, but not the car you were looking at.
Paying 4-5 figure sums to a private individual is always risky. What we are doing now when we take a car in trade in from a private seller is landline number and take a photocopy of passport and drving licesne. We then make a 'check call' on some pretext to the landline number. No disrespect to any nationality but we get a lot of people speaking weak English turn up with a car they want to sell, often with a cock and bull story, so you have to be very careful.
With some cars we connect up diag machine and read off VIN, sometimes you can also read mileage from the ECU (not just from dash pod).
For a 10k Audi I would definitely have VCDS on it.
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Whether the V5c number is in range or not is really irrelevant ... >>
WorkshopTech:
Have you told that to Honestjohn, Autotrader, The Police, The DVLA, Direct.gov.uk, etc. etc. who all publish the list of serial numbers as the first thing to check on a V5C ?
If not, then please persist with your campaign and get those web sites to alter the information to what you are saying, i.e. that checking V5C numbers irrelevant and is a waste of time.
Until then, I think I shall choose to ignore your advice on V5C and instead follow the - full - advice as given by official sources.
Edited by jbif on 04/02/2010 at 18:46
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Monica,
I'm very sorry indeed to have heard what has happened to you. You should get in touch with Forum Member "Bazomis" who I know has also, unfortunately, bought a car which proved to be stolen. He can almost certainly give you some advice, though I can appreciate it may well not be what you want to hear.
I assume you have reported the seller to the police. How did you pay the £10,000 for this car? Was it by a traceable method, i.e. cheque, BACS or CHAPS or did you pay it in cash? If it was by one of the first three methods then the police should be able to find the seller.
Just one other question, if I may. If the VIN numbers on the V5C and displayed on the car were different then why on earth did you proceed with the transaction?
Once again, I'm very sorry to learn what has happened to you. It's very little consolation, I know, but you're certainly not the first people to have been caught out in this way, and I fear you won't be the last.
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jbit,
The V5 was confirmed by the police as being stolen, but not part of this batch.
It's pointless the DVLA and anyone else telling buyers to refer to the serial numbers on their website when basically ANY V5 serial number beginning with the letter B could well be stolen, forged or a combination of the two.
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