I recently advertised my daily car for sale. I did the usual eBay, Facebook, Gumtree route
The car was well priced and sold quickly (within a week)
All well i thought, car is gone, i can get something newer....
Unfortunately that was not the end of the story.
Arriving home after work i find a speeding ticket in the post. Apparently I was doing 66mph in a 50mph zone near Luton Airport. Some 50-60 miles from my house on a Friday night at 10.30pm. In the car I had sold, albeit 2 days before the sale, hence I was still the registered keeper.
Well Mrs. Haddock and I can clearly remember being at home all evening! So it definitely was not us!
Some digging around with the old bill revealed the car in question was indeed the same registration, make & model
I duly sent off photographs of the vehicle to the police to verify their speeding photograph
A quick reply the next morning confirmed the registration had been cloned onto another vehicle, the same make & model which I had sold....
The police however did find enough differences from the photographs to drop the speeding ticket.
Phew.... Or not....
Next day i get a parking ticket for a sainsburys car park in Watford a day earlier than the speeding fine.
Again I was no-where near Watford at the time, the car was at my work address
So i have had to appeal that one, forwarding on the correspondence with the police (not heard back yet)
Phew.... Or not!
Come home today to find TWO more parking tickets! Again for Watford and the same day as the first parking ticket!
So now I need to go back to the police to get the confirmation of the cloning and the crime number to get out of these too!
This time though the parking ticket issuer has sent photographs of the vehicle in question (the police wouldn't release the photo as i have escalated it to a criminal offence)
Its almost the same car, albeit a few minor differences (same make, model, colour...)
Now this is doing my bloody head in as it's a real hassle to deal with all these various fines and appeal them. Although if anyone decided to try and take court action I've got enough proof to get it thrown out. But it is a real pain in the arse!
But as Mrs. Haddock pointed out if you were going to all the trouble of sticking false plates on a car, same make, model, colour etc. Surely you'd keep a low profile? Not get any tickets, speeding etc. as you'd get away with it for ages before anyone noticed if at all?! Not drive around like a nutter racking up fines and arousing suspicion.
I wouldn't have know anything about it were it not for the speeding fine.
Also it'll now be a problem for the new owners of the vehicle, they'll inevitably start getting fines coming through too.
So the point... Cover your plates up when selling a car!
I know it can put people off with the number plate covered over, especially with the new DVLA MOT check etc. It's easy for a buyer to look up and see if there are any problems.
But genuine buyers will contact and ask for details about the car
Now off to bed and try and sort out all this crap in the morning!
Wonder how many fines i'll get through tomorrow.....
