On 31 March a car bearing the registration number of my car was involved in a collision in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. As a result I started getting calls from my insurance company, plus a notice of intended prosecution from the Norfolk Police. I have now been sent a parking ticket by Great Yarmouth Borough Council. Who knows what else might be in the pipeline? As it happens, I have never been to Great Yarmouth in my life, and nor has my car which was at home in London on 31 March. Turns out there was a stolen car with a cloned number plate. The police have now found the car, checked its VIN number, arrested the miscreant, and confirmed to me that I shall not be prosecuted. I have yet to wrangle with the council about the parking ticket. The annoying bit is that the police sent me a form and demanded that I complete it. The form offered a number of options, but none of them suited these circumstances. In whatever way the form was completed, it involved making implicit admissions about assertions which were not correct; yet I was told (incorrectly) that I was "required" to complete the form. Still, it could have been worse. If the clone had been local to me instead of a distance away, it might have been difficult to prove the difference. And the clone could have been used in a robbery or a murder.
it's good to look on the bright side, I remember a documentary on credit card cloning following the tales mostly of woe of the victims in which at least one card owner was accused of taking out the money himself! It could happen of course but the quite elderly man had been with his bank for many years and was freely interviewed for television several times. The bank in question was B*rcl*ys on this occasion.
what, with CCTV, fingerprinting, DNA being taken from citizens at will and monitoring of all your online activity, you're suggesting the authorities may still have it WRONG? Don't believe it...
I know of a family of low-lifes who claim they took revenge on someone against whom they had a grievance by getting hold of an almost identical motorcycle to his, cloning his numberplate then riding at prison sentence speeds along his usual route to work, setting off every speed camera only minutes before he rode the exact same route himself. The clone bike was restored to its original plate immediately afterwards and the victim was left with the book thrown at him with devastating consequences and absolutely no way to defend himself. I don't know whether that story is true but knowing the career scumbags in question it sounds all too believable. It would be quite easy to pull such a scam against someone of regular habits for malicious reasons and I can't see how the victim could prove their innocence. Nightmare.
Of the "Big 4" UK banks, Barclays is in equal first with the other three for the title, "Worst Bastards On The High Street".
The police and the courts must know - or at least ought to know - that cloning is a possibility. They should not start from the assumption that a certain number plate/credit card must be genuine and accurate, when that may or may not be the case.
Just own up and admit it Pete. It will be better for you in the long run and I suspect that posts on forums will not count for much in a court of law.
Outstanding Congestion and Dartford Crossing charges on their way, I guess, Pete. I have to say though, I would be more worried if someone had cloned Pete and not his car.......
Yeh, just show em this thread, it proves it wasn't you - ask andyb, he'll tell ya, or he'd never suss you out at least
Great Yarmouth Borough Council have withdrawn the parking ticket. Although they have not said so explicitly, this was presumably on the basis that they accepted the number plate was cloned.
