Real or fake NCT

damon5

Am on the lookout for a replacement car and have been googling what to look out for regarding false NCT certs,logbooks etc doing their rounds,ive read that an authentic NCT cert has a 12-digit serial number and a fake has 11 digits.
Checked my own and yes it has 12 digits but have came across a website recently of an independant dealer that shows a photo of an NCT cert with only an 11 digit serial number,any imput appreciated for obvious reasons.....

Duffryman

Seems odd to me that it could be as simple as a real NCT having 12 digits, and a fake one having only 11. Surely the people producing the fake on would put 12 digits on it too, instead of making it that obvious that it was a fake?

Smacks a bit of the world's worst counterfeiter producing £7 notes....

mickuhaha

damon5 wrote: »

Am on the lookout for a replacement car and have been googling what to look out for regarding false NCT certs,logbooks etc doing their rounds,ive read that an authentic NCT cert has a 12-digit serial number and a fake has 11 digits.
Checked my own and yes it has 12 digits but have came across a website recently of an independant dealer that shows a photo of an NCT cert with only an 11 digit serial number,any imput appreciated for obvious reasons.....

You can check on the nct website if a car has a valid nct. Just put in the car reg.

Wheety

Nice of the scammers to make it so easy to spot a fake.

mickuhaha

Open up log book and hold it up to the light. You will clearly see a dashed line, security thread between page one and two. This thread says “TEASTAS CLARAITHE” in small writing and in negative on the dashed parts. And the dot on second page is temperature reactivate changing from purple to white.

nelly17

Just do a cartell check on anything you are seriously considering

damon5

Duffryman wrote: »

Seems odd to me that it could be as simple as a real NCT having 12 digits, and a fake one having only 11. Surely the people producing the fake on would put 12 digits on it too, instead of making it that obvious that it was a fake?

Smacks a bit of the world's worst counterfeiter producing £7 notes....

Was thinking along those lines too,thought there must be something in it for it to be put out there ...

Atlantic Dawn

Checking on the NCT website is the only way to verify. The paper could be real but test never happened. Paper for the certs was stolen some time ago so a scammer would only need a €50 inkjet printer to generate them.

damon5

mickuhaha wrote: »

You can check on the nct website if a car has a valid nct. Just put in the car reg.

Put the reg in on the NCT website and it shows the nct as valid but am still interested to know more about there being 11 digit and 12 digit serial numbers....

Wheety

damon5 wrote: »

Put the reg in on the NCT website and it shows the nct as valid but am still interested to know more about there being 11 digit and 12 digit serial numbers....

Maybe they just added an extra digit recently?

Is the first digit 0? maybe some systems don't print it.

damon5

mickuhaha wrote: »

Open up log book and hold it up to the light. You will clearly see a dashed line, security thread between page one and two. This thread says “TEASTAS CLARAITHE” in small writing and in negative on the dashed parts. And the dot on second page is temperature reactivate changing from purple to white.

Its the legitimacy of the NCT serial number that i,m enquiring about

Effects

damon5 wrote: »

Was thinking along those lines too,thought there must be something in it for it to be put out there ...

Nah, there's all kinds of BS like that spouted online that people fall for.

corks finest

Wheety wrote: »

Nice of the scammers to make it so easy to spot a fake.

Nigerian SCAMMERS constantly make simple spelling/ grammar mistakes,buy still manage to fool some

damon5

Wheety wrote: »

Maybe they just added an extra digit recently?

Is the first digit 0? maybe some systems don't print it.

Just had a look at the previous NCT sheets that i have since i bought the car in 2004 and they all have 12 digit serial numbers.Odd thing is thats nine sheets with the first four digits starting with 1700 except for the years 2007 and 2017 where the first four digits start with 1600 ....

George Dalton

What age of car are you looking at buying?

damon5

George Dalton wrote: »

What age of car are you looking at buying?

Not sure maybe latter part of 2008 with co2 tax rates ....

mickdw

Early 08 cars were switched onto co2 if beneficial.

damon5

mickdw wrote: »

Early 08 cars were switched onto co2 if beneficial.

I,ll let on i understand that completely

mickdw

While co2 tax system didn't come in until mid 08, if an early 08 car was cheaper to tax under the new system, it was automatically swapped onto cheaper system.

damon5

mickdw wrote: »

While co2 tax system didn't come in until mid 08, if an early 08 car was cheaper to tax under the new system, it was automatically swapped onto cheaper system.

I see know,thanks ....

damon5

Now back to the drawing board regarding the amount of digits in a NCT serial number,ive found it very hard to find an NCT cert on the internet with only 11 digits other than the first one that an independent dealer has up in his add.I put in nct cert in a google search and waited for the page to load,when it did i clicked on images and a selection of nct stuff appeared.
Some images were hard to make out and any that i could see had 12 digits but low and behold there was a cert with an 11 digit serial number,am really curious to know the reason why most have 12 digits and 11 digits seem pretty scarce ......

acronym Chilli

damon5 wrote: »

Now back to the drawing board regarding the amount of digits in a NCT serial number,ive found it very hard to find an NCT cert on the internet with only 11 digits other than the first one that an independent dealer has up in his add.I put in nct cert in a google search and waited for the page to load,when it did i clicked on images and a selection of nct stuff appeared.
Some images were hard to make out and any that i could see had 12 digits but low and behold there was a cert with an 11 digit serial number,am really curious to know the reason why most have 12 digits and 11 digits seem pretty scarce ......

But it really doesn't matter, 11 digits / 12 digits is just a red herring. Check status of car online, that's what counts (i.e. is there a record in database that the car was tested).
Even if the paper cert was missing, so long as the car was really tested and the record is in the database a replacement cert can be printed.

colm_mcm

acronym Chilli wrote: »

But it really doesn't matter, 11 digits / 12 digits is just a red herring. Check status of car online, that's what counts (i.e. is there a record in database that the car was tested).
Even if the paper cert was missing, so long as the car was really tested and the record is in the database a replacement cert can be printed.

This. The system will tell you if it has test.

acronym Chilli

colm_mcm wrote: »

This. The system will tell you if it has test.

Reg number and this link: https://www.ncts.ie/1074
are all that's needed