Car cloning is a serious crime that is on the rise. Unless you’ve had your car’s number plates physically stolen from your vehicle, then you will have no way of knowing whether your car has been cloned until an offense has been committed. The first you will hear about it, in all likelihood, is when you receive a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) or fine through the door for something that you are not guilty of. In some cases, the first you hear of your car being cloned may even be a visit from the police. This could well be the case if a cloned car has been involved in serious organised crime, such as a ram raid of burglary.
The other option is to get a FREE vehicle check from us, go here and fill out the vehicle registration. Our Premium checks will also check for stolen or cloned plates, as well as so-called Grey Imports (find out more about Grey Imports here).
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What Should I do if I get a Speeding Ticket from a Cloned Plate?
If you receive a speeding ticket for your car, and it’s clear that it wasn’t you or any other permitted person driving the car, then it may be that your car has been cloned. If this is the case, then you need to take action.
The first thing you should do is contact the organisation or body that issued the fine and explain to them that it wasn’t you and that there is a possibility that your car may have been cloned. They can then stop pursuing you for the offense or crime and investigate further.
Consider a new Plate
It may sound over the top, but if you suspect that your number plate has been cloned because you have received a PCN or fine relating to your car, then you should consider changing your registration number. The easiest way to do this is to buy a private or personalised registration and have it transferred to your car.
Doing the above will mean that any subsequent PCNs or fines cannot possible be from the activities of your own car, and you will have documented proof that you haven’t been using your original registration from the date that you bought the personalised one. The great thing about private registrations is that they are very cheap nowadays. You can get one for as little as £100, which is considerably less than the financial ramifications of any parking charges or other offenses that you could be wrongly accused of.
What Evidence Should I Gather?
Like it or not, if someone has cloned your car, then you are going to be the main suspect for any illegal activities that they have been involved in. So the most proactive approach would be to gather any supporting evidence that you can. It will all help you in the long run. Any evidence that proves your car was in a location different to that which shows on any PCNs or other fines would be good evidence. In the UK, CCTV is everywhere so is probably the best evidence that you can get.
Unfortunately, if your car is cloned then it is not something that is going to go away by ignoring it. You need t take action as soon as possible by gathering evidence to prove that you and your car are not involved. There is no shortage of people who didn’t do enough to fight their case and the consequences were dire for them. Learn from their mistakes and protect yourself as much as possible.
Have just received a speeding summons for my motor cycle from the Met Police, my bike has never been out of the garage for 4 years, and I live 300 miles away in Northumberland, I am at my wise end, I am 77 years old, can anyone help me.
hi, this has just happened to me, speeding fine in Hertfordshire but I live in East Yorkshire. When I looked at the “evidence picture” it was the same type of van but some small differences. I informed the police who put it on the ANPR register to stop if seen.
I then had to take pictures of my van and send them to the issuing ticket office after consideration, they cancelled the ticket the next day. Which I was very relived about.
I don’t know if it was a contributing factor but my van had been off the road for 6 weeks so it hadn’t hit any ANPR cameras in that time, this was something I mentioned in my statement.
I hope you have the same outcome.
thanks Steve
Its a joke, I’ve received 2 speeding tickets and I wasn’t in the area, told the police its not my car or me driving and they simply said prove it, how do I prove it ???? Park my car next to the clone car and ask if I can take a picture. Told the police to do there job and investigate to which they said its not there problem. I now have 9 points and had to pay £300. Solicitor advised not to take to court as it would be worse. Some judicial system we have. I have now purchased a different car before I get a ban
Just happened to me…though im not sure its a cloned plate, the speed camera picture is very fuzzy and i think its a wrong digit. The van in the picture is a white large transit, mine is a small transit connect. Ive found a van on mot check which is one digit away, sorned with no mot. Im guessing its that one being used illegally. Filled in the online form to this effect but no reply. The cases listed here worry me even more! And the article advice to buy a private reg is ridiculous. Why should i? The po po need to sort it not me. Any updates on what happened to others here?
Git to my car this morning number plates missing. Called police and got new plates fitted. I’m a ball of anxiety at present about what is to come. There is nothing distinct about my car. I am soo besides mysel as go away next week.. at least I have evidence of it mot being me if it is when I am away.
Received a speeding ticket with Intent to Prosecute due to excessive speed! This happen in East London at 3.15am luckily there’s CCTV on my driveway showing my car parked up! Also car in question is a different model style in the range… waiting for Met Police to get off they ass and cancel ticket but how I do I get them to register my car number on their system so that they could (fingers cross) pull over the clone vehicle?
So far I have received two parking fines for a car bearing my number plates it’s the same colour and make of my car but a standard model mine is a top of the range model and has a sun roof can clearly see it’s not my car. Nobody seems in the slightest interested it’s left to you to sort out.
I’m having the exact same problem…. mine has been goin on now for over 4 months and I’ve subsequently received £987 balif letter… I informed the police in both city’s as the clone was being used in the Birmingham area and I reside in Liverpool, to hear nothing back….. absolutely appalling and utterly soul destroying..
same is happening to me these days, received 8 tickets so far and more to come it looks like. he is driving within 15msq radious of my area. to my surprise police has informed me it is NOT A CRIME but an OFFENCE. i dont understand what country is this and what kind of laws we have here in the UK that using someone else’s number plate on your car is not a crime and you do not get a crime reference number rather you only get a normal ref number. Police will not investigate this matter as this is NOT A CRIME. police also say its not their fault but this is in law and to change the law i should speak about this to my local MP. the only option is if this number pops up n police cars as ANPR and they will stop as this is flagged and will enquire about this. i know most of the time this will only be myself as Police will hardly stop or find the real culprit. now within few days he will change the plate to something else and will never be caught. Police system in this country is horribly wrong, and no matter what you contact Police for, they are never helpful and always says we are very busy and stretched and criminals know about this that police will not anything so just carry on. May God help us
Unfortunately the police distinction is true but very petty and best not said to you. It’s to do with the classification of stealing written words / letters.
That said, as the purpose was to pervert the course of justice – that is a crime once affixed to a car, so that is a crime.
Therefore, they are wrong.
this has happend to me before, after the police visited me they knew it wasn’t my car and gave me a reference number. I’ll never drive around with a for sale sign in my car again
same thing has just happend to me, I’ve been driving my new car with my other car parked up as it’s for sale.
Received 2 penalty charge tickets and one police intended prosecution ticket given out over 2 hour period from cloned plate in London. Have cctv of where my car was at the time, and there were differences between my car and the cloned car. But..expecting more to come! It’s such a faff!
Have received a speeding ticket on my motorbike in Surrey from nearly a year ago although I was in lockdown in the forest of Dean three hours away
I got 2 speeding tickets , on 3 days apart from each other on the same part of the road , i enhanced one of the photos from b&w to colour and the reg plate had the blue stripe with the GB logo my car doesn’t and it’s a different colour , on the other photo you can’t even distinguish the number plate or colour, i pointed all this out and I’m still being taken to court
I m going through the same
What happens in the end ?
Do we ever get out of this mess?
How did it all finish for you? Hope the court restored justice. Please could you update us with as much details as possible. We are going through terrible times – have bought a car which turned out to be cloned. So far 3 fines from London (we have never driven in London). Boroughs don’t want to accept our challenges though the model of the car is different. Don’t know what to do. Any advice?
I just got a parking fine saying I was at a pub in Slough at 5am last week.. Unfortunately, given that it was 5am, I was at home asleep and my drive doesnt have cctv I have no evidence. Hoping the cctv of the car park in question or surrounding areas will show the car / drivers.
I got more then 7Penalty fines in the Last Months I don’t know what to do I’m thinking of just selling my bike and get Public transport
This has just happened to my son on the 19th of February he’s got to speeding ticket yesterday saying he was doing 58 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour zone in Manchester but he was at home and we have proof
these guys are bean heads. same happened to me