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Selling a private plate - is this a scam???


N!ck-z

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Any advice, experiences or opinion welcome......

 

My partner is selling a private plate (R77 NEV if anyone is interested) on behalf of her grandad (Neville) which is on retention certificate.

I have spoken to a bloke who is interested but he has pointed out that as the plate is on retention it is currently in Neville's name. Now to transfer this to someone else apparently costs £75. However.... if Neville was to place the plate on a car it would be free - but the plate would still be in Nevilles name no matter who the car belonged to.

 

The bloke I spoke to tonight suggested that he sends me the V5 for his car, i go to my local DVLA office with retention certificate and V5 and say I have just bought the car. They will place the car in "my" (Nevilles) name, issue a new V5 in Nevilles name with the new reg. I will then send the V5 back to the proper owner who will change the name back to his own thus keeping the plate but saving my partners grandad the fee.

 

A few things with this concern me

 

1. Neville will own a car that he will never have seen nor will see, leaving him liable to anything that car is involved with.

2. Why would anyone add another owner to their car and trust a stranger with it just to save someone else £75

3. Quite simply it just screams scam.

 

I know what I would do and that is pay the £75, but I cant figure out exactly what a scammer would get from this, as any crimes committed in the car will easily be explained away and there is obviously a link back to the previous owner. Another thing (although not massively significant) is the fact that the bloke got in contact through ebay and has 149 positive feedback, so again there would be a link back to him there.

 

Any one come across anything like this before?

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Outstanding car finance? Wouldn't the car finance company try and reposess the car if it still had finance outstanding which wasn't paid? If they contacted you wanting the car and you said you'd never seen it you could have problems as the DVLA has a record of you purchasing it, with your signature on the V5 etc, maybe even the guy in the DVLA office remembers your face. Then as you're not willing to handover the car (as you've never seen it) would they then try and claim cash from you?

 

Maybe it's a car that needs scrapping? Get it signed in someone elses name, dump it on the street et voila - no scrappage charge. (although with the scrappage scheme this seems unlikely these days).

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But can anyone think of what the scam would be? Or what would be gained from signing a car over to someone else?

I agree it screams scam but I just cant figure out exactly what the full scam is

 

To name a few;

- Car purchased with laundered monies which are now nicely concealed under a different name.

- Poor old Nev will get the car tax bill, reminder and fine sent to him.

- He's under the new rules going to be liable to insure the car regardless of weather its off road or not.

- Tax evasion for a trader wanting to sell the car for a profit....technically the profit belongs to Nev.

 

The list I'm sure will go on and on.

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Scam.

 

you can't put a plate on a car unless both documents (retention certificate and v5) have matching names. Once a plate is assigned to a car it becomes the property of whomever owns the car. (thats why the names must match for them to allow you to put the plate on a car).

 

Also, it costs just £25 to have a nominee added to a retention certificate. This can be done at any time, or at the time of adding the plate to a vehicle. The form just neds to be signed by the grantee with the nominees details added.

 

In the above your grandad is the grantee, and the buyer is the nominee.

 

So - what happens is, your grandad gets the money for the plate, along with the details of the buyer. He then adds this buyers name to the retention certificate in the nominee section, signs it and hands it over to the dvla when the chap wants to assign it to his car. The buyer can then have this added to his own car for the £25 fee.

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