An HPI check is useless on its own. If he wants to keep it the last place he wants to go is a main dealer if it is cloned. They will pick it up straight away and bring in the police. From that point he is negotiating uphill with the owner (or their insurer if they have paid out on it).
If it is cloned then his best option is to try and buy it in from them but he will be best telling them he has it. You cannot "develop" good title.
I see loads of similar cases and the irony is that the crooks actually like people to conduct a vehicle check because it gives the "mark" more confidence.
When a vehicle is cloned the checks are made against the registration of a legitimate (non-stolen) vehicle. It is up to you to check the veracity of the information by conducting a number of additional checks - most specifically that the VIN and the registration plate match up and that the V5 is not on the stolen list.
All the main vehicle check companies offer inbuilt insurance against being cheated but you have to follow the rules to claim.
A summary of the checks you need to make before you make any claim are:
1. You need to carry out the check yourself before you buy the vehicle - do not accept a check made by another buyer and certainly not by the vendor.
2. You must supply the vehicle check company with both the vehicle registration mark (VRM) and the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) to be eligible to claim on the vehicle check insurance. The HPI Guarantee will not apply if the VRM does not match the VIN.
3. You need to check that the paperwork matches the vehicle. All the major vehicle check companies would immediately pick up a claim based on a stolen V5.
4. You must check that all the VIN markings on the vehicle match each other and the corresponding V5 registration document.
5. You must keep and produce on request a written receipt for your purchase, signed by the seller, containing the key information needed to identify the seller and the vehicle (e.g. the seller's name and address, the identity and mileage of the vehicle purchased, the date of purchase and the amount you paid).
6. If you are buying the vehicle privately you must buy it from the keeper, at the address shown on the V5. You must also ask for proof of the identity of the seller.
7. You must buy the vehicle in a reasonably prudent manner (for example - claims will not be considered if you have paid 30% below the retail market value).
8. The cover provided is based on the car's value.
9. Insurance offered with a vehicle check does not normally cover the vehicle's descriptive information made at the time of purchase or if the loss has arisen as a result of a fraudulent transaction.
10. The insurance is normally valid for two years from the date of the check.
11. The vehicle must be bought and registered in mainland Britain (i.e. it usually excludes Northern Ireland). Normally checks do not guarantee any history prior to arrival in this country.
12. If you make a claim the company will normally demand the right to inspect the vehicle and to make the final decision as to its condition and value.
I have seen the above described as "jumping through hoops" but all of the requirements are sensible and if a "hoop" is produced it is probably as well to have jumped through it.
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Owner found out the car IS stolen, and handed it over to police.
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Not good news.
Thanks for letting us all know.
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quelle surprise. it's a shame it was stolen, but that price was too cheap. You just have to ask why you'd ever sell a car for less than it's worth - I know I wouldn't. I bet even "we buy any car" would have paid more for it!
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Sorry to hear that.
Let's review. He has irretrievably lost his £18,500. He has lost his car and now has
no transport.
Thieves only prosper because of the greed and gullibility of the 'mark'.
There is a lesson there, why won't people learn from it.
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I'm going to post this again, even though it's been mentioned above, because so many people don't seem to grasp this. Maybe HJ could cover it in noticeably plain language in his column.
An HPI check is no use to man nor beast if the incorrect registration number is given over for the check...and...a stolen car WILL have an incorrect number showing (usually).
The advice above, given by Lucy, shows that to claim on HPI's system, you'd need to check all the VIN plates match, not just look at the VIN plate in the window, (which thieves will often change). How many people usually do that...me included?
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Accepting HPI checkes etc etc is one thing but common sense is most important.
I belive the purchase of this particular vehicle had no common sense attached at all !
Never rely on just a mobile, never meet at a remote address, paid cash !! ( bit suspect ) as any dosh over 5-10K should be checked for money laundering, this can be checked by a bank when vast somes are paid in !
This poor guy did everything you shouldn't do including rely on an HPI check.
Basically it was too good to be true and thats why he bought.
We really do need to find a way to educate people in common sense
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4. You must check that all the VIN markings on the vehicle match each other and the corresponding V5 registration document.
And for HPI this is the piece of smallprint which gets you.
Do you know how many VIN markings each and every car has?
If "no" how do you know where to look to check them all?!
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when the hapless tiddly was at ours and I began to have serious doubts about the motor, I could see two VIN numbers on the vehicle : Plate through the screen, which matched the paltry documents, and another sticker in the spare wheel area, which again matched
Despite two of us searching with torches, we could not find the ' master ' VIN stamped into the bodywork, anywhere... In my Nissan it's below the driver's seat in large letters, roughly the size of the ' Honest John ' you see next to our beloved author's mugshot at the top of the Home Page.
As I only had ' suspicions ' , abandoned the search in the dark and cold after 20 mins. It doesn't matter now but if anybody knows where they are on these cars ??
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In Fords,it is stamped into the floorpan just in front of the driver's seat-usually a little flap in the carpet to allow you to see it.
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when I had to go and appraise cars for people to purchase I used to take my diag kit with me, for one reason i could tell if any faults lurking or on some vehicles check out previous fault history, but i also used to chack out Vin numbers and the vin numbers related to other modules, suprising how often different chassis numbers would turn up! sometimes caused by errors or someone tampering . Still needed to rely on intuition to a degree.
Proud to say did turn up quite a few duds and on one occasion I strongly recommended a customer to walk but he didnt ,he took a chance and 3 months later it was retrived by the police as stolen , so just goes to show even with advice some will still take a chance !
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Motorprop your search for the VINs is exactly why I raised it.
Our Aygo has VIN stickers all over it - I doubt I have found them all after 4 years ownership as some are hidden
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Met the hapless owner again today ( kids get on ) . Have this additional info incase it jogs somebody's memory or saves them getting ripped off ;
Buyer and seller met at Grantham train station, Lincs ( buyer will ask police to review security tapes from station - seller wore no hat ) on 6th Nov 10.
Buyer discovered irrefutably vehicle WAS stolen while car was at main dealer's , not from them, but by calling Audi UK and asking VIN related questions
Car stolen in North London 24th Oct. VIN number on windscreen was ' replaced ' .
Police collected car from main dealers the day after he contacted them earlier this week.
Yes, he made all the errors, but he's a decent and trusting person and didn't deserve to lose close to £20 k to a rip off merchant
Seller didn't even count his cash ( handed over at train station coffee shop ) - just grabbed bag and hurried off
Edited by motorprop on 21/11/2010 at 21:39
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( buyer will ask police to review security tapes from station - seller wore no hat )
There may well be little merit in doing that. What will you get? A picture of someone. What do you do with it then? Unless it's going on Crimewatch or similar it's of no use to man nor beast, how do you find out who the person in the picture is?
It's not like feeding a fingerprint in to a computer or doing DNA analysis, there's no computer you can feed a photo in to.
Then there's the fact that even if the man was known locally and the Old Bill recognised him, by the time his door is put in, the money's well gone and he'll have no assets to his name..they never do...and as for a proper punishment from a court nowadays..forget it.
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Motorprop - he didn't deserve to lose the money you say? Hmmm.... any chance he saw something almost too good to be true and went for it, driven by, er, greed I think it's called. I may be sounding harsh but isn't that the truth? If it isn't, you've got to be plain stupid to make a purchase of that magnitude in those circumstances. Your friend makes it easy for the thieves and ringers to trade and we all pay for his stupidity with increased insurance costs. No, I wouldn't will a decent person to lose all that money, but my sympathy is a little limited.
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a tad cynical, you and the Occidental Swine . My gullible friend is not claiming, the insurers have the car back to recover any payout. We don't know how the thieves got a car with a key , perhaps the weakness is on that side.
As for the fuzz, at what level do they start taking crimes seriously - if not £20k , then £100k, £1m ? If somebody holds up a cash van and gets a dirty £2k, sirens , copters , road closures - Gang of car ringers - leave it mate , no chance...
Why bother indeed.... last person switch the lights off
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I agree your friend does not deserve to loose his money nor does anybody else, the western world is to soft on these people if and when they catch them.There are lots of genuine reasons to sell anything cheap for cash your friend was a little naive thats all. After watching a German television program showing how easy it was to steal any car in seconds and produce genuine keys at will so that part does not suprise me. It took under 4 minutes to steal a new top of the range car produce keys and paperwork and advert.ise in the equivalent of Autotrader.
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Taking crime seriously? When my brother had £7K of Yamaha R1 stolen, he turned up at the police station with a CCTV video of the guys reccying the bike (turned up in a car), then an hour later turning up in a Transit, cutting the locks etc and lifting it (alarm screaming) into the van. Excellent mug shots - two sets of numberplates to trace. What was their response? "You're insured aren't you?" - not one little bit interested. We should be sharpening our pitchforks, the people we employ to serve and protect us are working for the other side.
Edited by SteveLee on 23/11/2010 at 19:24
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On a smaller scale, my nephew had his mobile stolen some 4-5 years ago. My BiL went to the police with the name & address of the culprit, but it was just too much hassle for the boys in blue to foillow it up........so it's not a new thing.
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so basically, if plod did their job instead of waiting for the kettle to boil or for the helicopter to chase ( no chopper - no bovver ) , there would be 200000 in prisons , not a paltry 85000 ??
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If evidence exists (the R1 for instance) it needs to be raised at a higher level than the apparently disinterested front counter. Corruption in all it's forms (omission and commission) isn't just a South American habit. A little oxygen of publicity might help: MCN can be relied on for hysteria.
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