Posting photos of your car online with a visible number plate opens you up to the possibility of criminals cloning that number plate and using it to conceal a stolen vehicle that is the same make and model as yours.
Unbeknownst to yourself, this could implicate you in a crime that you may never have been involved in.
A first-hand experience
Recently, TopAuto was contacted by a concerned reader as their vehicle was stolen in a small town in Gauteng just outside of Johannesburg, and when it was found again at the Mozambican border early the next morning, it was wearing fake number plates that were identical to a press vehicle featured in a TopAuto article earlier this year.
The vehicle in question was the exact colour, make, model, and registration year of the one featured in our article – but these were not its original plates, and it wasn’t the same car we drove as that one was still doing its rounds with the media.
Presumably, the criminals capture the details of number plates on websites and social media and then use their contacts to create counterfeit plates with the same alphanumerics, as this will allow them to go undetected for longer after stealing a car with identical specifications to the one they saw in the photo.
This is done with the knowledge that if a less-than-vigilant police officer scans the plate, they may only look at the most notable details such as the colour, make, model, and registration year of the car that is allocated to it, which are the same as the one they took the plate details from, and not the finer particulars like the VIN.
Producing a fake plate also wouldn’t be that hard to accomplish, as just recently, the Gauteng Department of Transport highlighted the prevalence of fraudulent registration plates in the province and announced that new plates will be launched in the near future with tighter security measures to combat this, indicating that there are more than enough service providers for this unlawful practice.
The manufacturer responds
After receiving the information from the distressed reader, TopAuto promptly forwarded it to the manufacturer of the stolen car, which confirmed that this has happened in the past and that it is “difficult to prevent.”
The company noted that this is one of the primary reasons it uses custom number plates for press photos of its vehicles, which is a similar practice employed by most dealerships when they list images of cars for sale on online platforms.
To best avoid becoming a part of such a crime through no fault of your own, it’s recommended to steer clear of posting any photos of your vehicle on the internet, and if you do, to ensure that all the sensitive details like the number plate, licence, and VIN data are hidden.
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