Blocking out Reg

Tim Robbins

Hi,
I was just wondering why are so many reg plates blocked out of photos on carzone? Is there something I am missing?
Rgds

January

Stolen plates??? Anybody could use your registration number...

leeroybrown

You don't want someone searching carzone for say a Silver E46 325i and making up a copy of your a plate to avoid detection.

JoeySully

or if ya don't want the neighbors to know that your selling:D

Tim Robbins

I don't get any of the above.

jameshayes

Example;

Scumbag steals a car - a Ford Focus, Green, 05, Reg Plate; 05D12345
Scumbag gets his smart friend to look up carzone and find a green 05 focus, green.

Mate finds a car with reg; 05D54321.

Scumbag gets plate made up & puts them on the car.

Garda do a random check on the car when scumbag is pulled, comes up as green focus 05 & not a stolen car.. Scumbag gets away free..

mik_da_man

OK, Say I have a Silver E46 325i (as mentioned above)
I look up one on carzone, get the reg and make up fake plates.
Stick them on and can happily speed past any camera knowing that someone else will get the fine.

Get the idea??...

dingding

Can you not find a similar car in any carpark.

endplate

I found my new car on Carzone and the reg number was on full display in the ad mmm do I have a few clones running about:D

My old car is up there now and it's number is blocked out

Run_to_da_hills

Same reason panel beaters remove reg plates from crashed cars. So they can't be recognised. If someone recognises the same car for sale again and again they will get sus why it is not selling.

Steve

mik_da_man wrote: »

OK, Say I have a Silver E46 325i (as mentioned above)
I look up one on carzone, get the reg and make up fake plates.
Stick them on and can happily speed past any camera knowing that someone else will get the fine.

Get the idea??...

Sign of things to come?
Biggest problem in London with the congestion cameras is number plate theft....

leeroybrown

dingding wrote: »

Can you not find a similar car in any carpark.

Sure you might be able to, but it's not half as easy as doing a search online where someone has gone to the trouble of cataloguing the cars by year, model and colour. Also, online they'll often be able to see where the car is based so they can pick a car from outside their area.

I'd suggest that cloned plates will become even more common now with the extra toll booths, extra speed cameras and the introduction of automated plate checking systems on some Garda cars (or at least they were supposed to be installing them). And if a congestion charge materialises in Dublin...

Tim Robbins

leeroybrown wrote: »

Sure you might be able to, but it's not half as easy as doing a search online where someone has gone to the trouble of cataloguing the cars by year, model and colour. Also, online they'll often be able to see where the car is based so they can pick a car from outside their area.

I'd suggest that cloned plates will become even more common now with the extra toll booths, extra speed cameras and the introduction of automated plate checking systems on some Garda cars (or at least they were supposed to be installing them). And if a congestion charge materialises in Dublin...

Thanks all. Well explained. It's funny when I look at an ad with the reg blocked out, it put me off as I thought it looked dodge.

rebel.ranter

I'm amazed we have prgoressed as far as people actually putting the price they are looking for on the ad. Years ago the ads in the news paper (the only place you could really look at cars at the time, imagine!!)

In the UK there is a lot more camera technology in use, congestion zones, speed cameras, plate recognition for motor tax evasion, etc. How come it is not as prevalent on the UK autotrader.co.uk site? It seems to be the exception rather than the norm over there to block out numbers.

javaboy

Somebody was probably told that a criminal can get your name and address from your reg. And from that you can get your email address and everyone knows once you have someone's email address you can steal their identity and wipe out their bank accounts. :rolleyes: Once one person saw a car up with blacked out plates it spread like wildfire.

Or it could be as one poster suggested, the typical Irish thing of not wanting your neighbour to know your business.

Or maybe people just want to discourage people running cartell checks when they've something to hide?

TwoShedsJackson

Discouraging cartell checks is probably up there, if you ring the seller and they won't give you the reg over the phone so you can do a check, that's when you can start to get suspicious.

pclancy

Well as someone who had a scumbag drive around with my stolen insurance disk for a year, the less identity stuff on the net that could be stolen the better!

prospect

rebel.ranter wrote: »

In the UK there is a lot more camera technology in use, congestion zones, speed cameras, plate recognition for motor tax evasion, etc. How come it is not as prevalent on the UK autotrader.co.uk site? It seems to be the exception rather than the norm over there to block out numbers.

Alot of people in the UK keep their plates, afaik.