This article is about the car equivalent of identity theft. According to researches there are thousands of cloned vehicles on the roads of our country. However lots of people still do not know about this problem. Furthermore even the police say they are not aware of the true scope of the problem.
How Does This Work?
Criminals use several ways of car cloning. The basis of all these methods is stealing the other car’s “identity”.
The Most Frequent Ways Are:
Criminals steal the registration plates from other cars of the same model and color put them on their vehicles thus making a “clone” of another vehicle. Usually the owner of the cloned vehicles notices very quickly that the number plates have disappeared. He or she pays a certain sum of money to replace the plates. However the owner is not aware that now a cloned vehicle exists and someone uses it under the new identity, perhaps for some kind of illegal activity.
The owner of this cloned car can, for instance, leave without paying for parking or for refueling. The crimes in which the cloned vehicle is used can be more serious ranging from organized crime or terrorist actions.
Vehicle Cloning by Means of Internet
Car cloning does not require the physical stealing of registration plates. Owing to Internet there are more sophisticated methods. Now there is a loophole in legislation which allows internet companies to sell replica numbers which are not to be used as real numbers.
When buying a new number plate for your vehicle, you must produce a proof of address, driver’s license and a log book. However there are a lot of companies which can sell the new number without any documents. So the criminals place the order with the registration number they want. Some time later they receive the plate without any questions. Of course, these plates are not designed for road use but this will not prevent the criminals to put them onto their vehicles and use the plates as they want.
Baffling complexity of this situation lies in the fact that a criminal does not need even to touch the car to commit the crime and steal the vehicle’s identity. So there is no indication whether the crime takes place or not.
Most people get to know that they are victims of car cloning only when they start to get different fines, bills, parking tickets that have nothing to do with them being practically unable to prove that they are not guilty such people have either to pay all these papers or go to the court.
The experts say that when people receive fines, bills, parking tickets or when they are accused of more serious crimes their main task is to prove that they are innocent. Unfortunately it is rather difficult so many people just prefer not to struggle and think that it is easier to pay than to call to the police and explain the situation. So even experts do not actually know how many people just accept all these fines and penalties instead of challenging the system.
They also say that if you managed to buy a cloned car it is not you who is the real car’s owner.
What Can Be Done to Be Ahead?
* Make it difficult for criminals to steal your car’s registration plates. For this purpose you can get anti-theft plates which just break when someone unscrews them. These plates have been recently designed so soon they will bring all criminals’ attempts to nothing.
* If they managed to steal your car’s registration plates, inform the police immediately and get from them a crime reference number. This will help you to prove that you are innocent in the crimes which may be committed with the help of your cloned vehicle.
* If you are accused of the crime you have nothing to do with challenge this and inform the police immediately. Don’t keep silence, make a fuss, and defend yourself if you are not guilty.