We've Been Cloned - and now fines are stacking up.....

EmilysDad

Senior Member
Joined
May 8, 2012
Messages
12,120
Reaction score
5,664
Location
Bury Lancs
Your Mercedes
ML350
I must just have been lucky as nothing like this has ever happened to me. The closest was when eBay suspended my account when someone in Thailand tried to use my account.
 

davemercedes

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Messages
4,345
Reaction score
2,099
Location
Glos
Your Mercedes
2007 Merc 220 CDi Est Auto Av (s203)
Ineresting, Ron. If youve seen the way High Court "Sherrifs" carry on, if they are instructed to act upon someone, that's exactly what they do. If I had chosen to ignore my first wake up call where a council in the NW of England came after me for falsely overdue rent (long story... in the end their CEO apologised to me because their employees had not followed their own ID procedures) then I would have been in deep lumber. - If it had gone to the High Court - which is what the TV program "Can't pay - we'll take it away" illustrates - I could have been forced to allow them into my house, list and remove property and no matter what I said about innocence - if they have a live writ, they enforce it and I would have been left hoping that I would get back my goods or monies once it was proven that I was an innocent party!
 

Ron240

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 28, 2020
Messages
2,516
Reaction score
2,607
Location
Fife
Your Mercedes
Sold - 2021 CLA 35 Premium.
Ineresting, Ron. If youve seen the way High Court "Sherrifs" carry on, if they are instructed to act upon someone, that's exactly what they do. If I had chosen to ignore my first wake up call where a council in the NW of England came after me for falsely overdue rent (long story... in the end their CEO apologised to me because their employees had not followed their own ID procedures) then I would have been in deep lumber. - If it had gone to the High Court - which is what the TV program "Can't pay - we'll take it away" illustrates - I could have been forced to allow them into my house, list and remove property and no matter what I said about innocence - if they have a live writ, they enforce it and I would have been left hoping that I would get back my goods or monies once it was proven that I was an innocent party!
Again I totally sympathise....but one should not be out of pocket if one is totally and completely innocent....that is for the law of the land to prove otherwise.

Yes this is a simplistic attitude, but one i would defend to my dying day.
 

mioba

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2006
Messages
7,898
Reaction score
4,657
Location
Nottingham and Köln
Your Mercedes
W124/E200, W220/S320CDI, W205/C200, W251/R350CDI 4Matic
Totally sympathise OP. Most frustrating is the hassle of proving that you are blindly innocent. PERSEVERE AND KEEP COOL. It will all come good.
 

EmilysDad

Senior Member
Joined
May 8, 2012
Messages
12,120
Reaction score
5,664
Location
Bury Lancs
Your Mercedes
ML350
The system does work,

only to a degree. As I've said before, due to a faux pas with the insurer, EmilysMum's car effectively had no insurance for the best part of a year (they noted the reg plate wrong & I didn't notice) and the car had been up & down the country without a ping from ANPR
 

sonic

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 21, 2009
Messages
3,578
Reaction score
2,382
Location
Staffordshire
Your Mercedes
E350CDI, SLC250d, FJR 1300
only to a degree. As I've said before, due to a faux pas with the insurer, EmilysMum's car effectively had no insurance for the best part of a year (they noted the reg plate wrong & I didn't notice) and the car had been up & down the country without a ping from ANPR
I have been retired 20 years but even back then we were struggling to attend all ANPR pings. I hate to think how bad it is now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DSK

eman

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2013
Messages
747
Reaction score
237
Location
Walsall
Your Mercedes
21 EQC 400 Premium Plus
One of my gaffers got pulled in his Range Rover with a car full of clients going to a golf day. Got boxed in with the boys in blue coming out with their guns at the ready. Apparently his car had been cloned and was committing armed robberies everywhere. After proving it wasn’t him he was told by them to put a piece of tape on his plate front and back so as to show up if his car got pinged in future. He got pulled again for having tape on his plate until he told them the situation. But that’s how they knew it wasn’t him when the others pinged a camera. His RR had private plates on as well.
 

Hotspur

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2020
Messages
256
Reaction score
319
Your Mercedes
R230 SL350
you mean tape to cover the numbers and letters or just as a marker somewhere on the plate to show it was different to the plate caught on camera's
 

ajlsl600

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2013
Messages
9,031
Reaction score
6,029
Location
france
Your Mercedes
clk3202001,sl6002003 with everything regrettably sold ,A class 170cdi auto. NG/TF1800 ML250
Not only the police but in my case one of the Building Societes... seemed so thick I nearly exploded! First they wrote to me saying they'd had a requst to grant a loan on my account - and they confirmed that they had refused (thank goodness) then when I gave them all the ID theft info they refused to remove it from my personal record because they said it "had actually happened". Five emails and two registered letters to update my credit records (Experian etc) and they finally woke up to the fact that I was the injured party! Then, when I called the police and asked them to deal with it, the woman I spoke to said in a rather surly tone: "What do you expect us to do about it?" and I said: I want you record and give me a crime report number because a crime has been commited - at which point the line simply went dead and (thankfully) I was transferred to a human bean - a "real" Police Sergeant who knew exactly where I was coming from etc. So I was able to get and put the crime number on my credit record and add a password to be quoted if I ever wanted to arrange a loan.

There was quite a bit of stress to accompany this - thankfully I was at a time of life where I didn't need to borrow money etc - but I might easily have been up that nasty creek without a paddle!

Sorry to read this. Frankly I would be inspecting and polishin a friend of mine, dreadful story.
 

Crispian

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2015
Messages
277
Reaction score
158
Location
nuneaton
Your Mercedes
W166 Ml63 AMG with performance package
Unfortunately the quickest way to sort this is to but a cheap plate from dvla,you can transfer it pretty much instantly.
 

Jim2

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2018
Messages
1,978
Reaction score
1,679
Your Mercedes
1st Merc 2010 E Class W212 2.1 CDI. 2nd Merc 2014 E Class W212 220 CDI
When these thieves drive into a filling station, fill up, and then drive off without paying, surely they are caught on CCTV? And straight away the filling station will contact the Police ? So the car details / Reg should go on the Police system immediately ?
 

ajlsl600

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2013
Messages
9,031
Reaction score
6,029
Location
france
Your Mercedes
clk3202001,sl6002003 with everything regrettably sold ,A class 170cdi auto. NG/TF1800 ML250
I have the utmost sympathy for anyone in this type of situation and the perpetrators are scum of the highest order, but Ive always wondered what happens if you simply ignore everything that comes through the post...because you are completely innocent after all?
The law of the land is innocent until proven guilty.
If u have plenty of spare cash it is so.
 

DeeEmm

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2019
Messages
80
Reaction score
46
Location
Bury,Lancs
Your Mercedes
C220 CDI ESTATE 2012
To the OP, the best thing you can do is to place a bit of black tape on your numberplate front and rear say in the top right corner.
Then take a photograph of your car with the tape attached to the plate, then contact or email the forces where the clone has been used with the picture of your car and say the tape will remain on your plate so any other ANPR hits will be the cloned vehicle.

That way the respective forces can see the cloned car and hopefully catch it.
There is no need to change your registration number just mark yours as the true vehicle.
 

Blobcat

Moderator
Joined
Feb 8, 2006
Messages
38,787
Reaction score
27,423
Location
Grange Moor
Your Mercedes
R171 SLK280, Smart R451, Land Rover 110 County SW, 997 C2S, R1250 GSA TE 40th, CBR600FP
To the OP, the best thing you can do is to place a bit of black tape on your numberplate front and rear say in the top right corner.
Then take a photograph of your car with the tape attached to the plate, then contact or email the forces where the clone has been used with the picture of your car and say the tape will remain on your plate so any other ANPR hits will be the cloned vehicle.

That way the respective forces can see the cloned car and hopefully catch it.
There is no need to change your registration number just mark yours as the true vehicle.
And what is stopping you peeling the tape off filling up with fuel, driving off without paying and then doing 100mph up the dual carriageway before putting the tape back on when you get home?...:rolleyes:
 

DeeEmm

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2019
Messages
80
Reaction score
46
Location
Bury,Lancs
Your Mercedes
C220 CDI ESTATE 2012
The OP wants a way to differentiate his car from the cloned car and a visible marker on the plate is a way of doing so.
 

robin.large

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2019
Messages
394
Reaction score
343
Your Mercedes
CLS C63 AMG 2013
The OP wants a way to differentiate his car from the cloned car and a visible marker on the plate is a way of doing so.
As the OP is likely to be an upstanding member of the public as a forum member they don't need to differentiate do they? They know it wasn't them and a bit of removable tape just doesn't make the grade as any sort of evidence either way.
More useful would be a new set of plates with a flag identity on them (England, Scotland, Wales etc).

Also useful is to have a tracking device which can prove your location - I use an Amatrac from Amazon with which I can view historic positions and data and print out using Tracksolid App.

Either they have to put up with having to deny the offenses which is usually short term as the offender's will change plates again soon enough or attach a private plate. It's an expense for sure but relatively minor.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk
 

DeeEmm

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2019
Messages
80
Reaction score
46
Location
Bury,Lancs
Your Mercedes
C220 CDI ESTATE 2012
It's not for them,it's for the police to identify the cloned vehicle.
 

robin.large

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2019
Messages
394
Reaction score
343
Your Mercedes
CLS C63 AMG 2013
I'm pretty sure the boys in blue just wouldn't bother. They don't even attend burglaries etc so a cross jurisdiction effort just isn't going to happen.
In any case as the number plate manufacturers details should be on the number plate by law then they can already be distinguished. As per my earlier post more permanent marks other than a bit of tape are already easily available.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk
 

Jim2

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2018
Messages
1,978
Reaction score
1,679
Your Mercedes
1st Merc 2010 E Class W212 2.1 CDI. 2nd Merc 2014 E Class W212 220 CDI
But once the details have been entered into the Police data base, should it not automatically red flag the car at any police checkpoint / routine meeting on the roads etc. ?
 


Comand (Europe) Ltd are the leading specialists in supplying and fitting Comand, Linguatronic, Media interface kits, UHI phone, IPod interfaces and much more.
Top Bottom