VRT Export Scam

thadg

Just wondering as anyone got experience of buying an irish registered car with an Irish genuine licencing cert (tax book) and genuine nct cert, but to find out after when you go to tax it and get the local tax office to send off the tax book to Shannon they tell you that the car in question has been exported out of the country and vrt has been paid to the previous owner??

Is the the genuine Irish tax book which is a legal document for the car enough to accept that you are buying a car that is registered in this country and what is revenues procedure on this??

any info would be appreciated

George Dalton

That's a new one on me! Very simple to do also. A history check probably wouldn't even flag it up if the car was sold on directly after the export procedure was concluded.

Presumably the buyer would have the seller's name and address though which could lead to an interesting conversation?

thadg

car check was done and on motorcheck. it comes up as a question and at the time it said not exported.

seller says he has nothing to hide and did not claim back vrt and said to pass his number on to revenue. all his details seem to be legit.


revenue haven't come back with any info and seem don't seem to be rushing the problem.

in the meantime the car owner is afraid to drive the car.

bazz26

Is it possible the seller's car has been cloned?

thadg

I wouldn't know but I thought the vrt export would only pay the money into the car owners bank account directly.

not 100% sure on this

Del2005

thadg wrote: »

Just wondering as anyone got experience of buying an irish registered car with an Irish genuine licencing cert (tax book) and genuine nct cert, but to find out after when you go to tax it and get the local tax office to send off the tax book to Shannon they tell you that the car in question has been exported out of the country and vrt has been paid to the previous owner??

Is the the genuine Irish tax book which is a legal document for the car enough to accept that you are buying a car that is registered in this country and what is revenues procedure on this??

any info would be appreciated

It wouldn't be too hard to claim to loose the VLC and get a duplicate VLC. Then claim to export with the duplicate and sell with the original. Can revenue tell you if there was ever a duplicate VLC issued for the car, can't see data protection issues with a vehicle you own.

Unfortunately unless Revenue have made a mistake then you'll have to VRT the car again, revenue don't care if you have been scammed they only deal with the vehicle presented to them. Can't even see the Gardai getting involved either.

Makes buying 2nd hand much more risky now if you can't find out if a vehicle has had its VRT reclaimed by a fake export.

CiniO

But to claim VRT refund, person has to present proof that it was registered in destination country.
I wonder how do they go around this in that scam

thadg

even if it came to the situation that the vrt must by paid again the new owner says they wont pay as it is too much money but the other problem is the car is now on a uk reg that nobody (bar revenue) knows the reg of and there is no uk tax book present either so it cant be vrt'd anyway.

this more or less means it is not safe to buy a car in this country any more, even when you do all checks possible.

A garda did a check on him and the car before the purchase and all came up ok.

he insists that he hasn't done it, he would have surely have not used his own phone number or met us at his house if he did it.

revenue have a lot to answer here too, if a second tax book is issued it should come up on a motorcheck instantly

Mintoe

I should be able to clarify for you if car was exported and if VRT was rebated or not. Can you let me know the reg no. & I'll see what I can find out.
send me a private message if necessary and include the chassis number off the vehicle itself please. (make sure it matches the chassis no on the VRC cert (log book)

I can also check against uk data to see if it was ever registered in the UK.

Del2005

CiniO wrote: »

But to claim VRT refund, person has to present proof that it was registered in destination country.
I wonder how do they go around this in that scam

Not hard to drive across the border with the duplicate VLC and start the registration process. You only run into problems registering in the UK if it's not a common vehicle.

thadg

it is now showing up as exported. it was only imported to Ireland 2 years ago. the car has full main dealer history from new with every receipt from all previous owners.

a very clean and genuine car.

a garage would have got caught just as easy if the last owner traded it in, I cant understand why revenue don't have it sorted. its on going with 6 weeks.

dingus12

Nasty little scam that, owner gets a duplicate irish log book for 12 euro, uses that to "export" the car to NI, claims back the VRT, sticks the original Irish number plates back on and sells it with the original log book quickly before the data bases are updated.

thadg

Would it be worth the risk?

I wouldn't like to have the revenue on my back.

At the end of the day it is fraud.

Atlantic Dawn

At the end of the day it will all go back to the owner of the car if there's fraud.