VIN Cloning

VIN Cloning scam is very common today in the used car market. VIN cloning scam is used to sell the vehicles with a “bad” history - stolen or salved cars as good vehicles. The only thing the thieves need to “clone” a vehicle is a VIN number with a decent history. After the VIN is fetched, a new VIN plate is crafted and attached to the vehicle or the VIN printed on the vehicle is altered. This way, a problem vehicle gets a new clan history and then a new unsuspecting owner who runs VIN Lookup, sees clean history as buys it. If you get caught driving a stolen vehicle, losing it and the money you have paid for it is the lightest of the consequences. At the worst, you may get into serious problems and will have hard times proving that you were not involved in a car theft.

But how do the thieves get a VIN number for cloning? There are a number of ways. First, they may peep though the wind shield hole and copy the VIN number while your car is on the parking lot. Another way is finding a person or a dealership that sells a vehicle of a specific make, model and color. Pretending to be a buyer, he or she ask the VIN number in order to run VIN lookup in order to obtain the vehicle history report and make sure the vehicle’s history is clean. And he will actually be interested in finding the vehicle with a clean history for it’s the clean VIN’s history attached to a problems car that he is going to sell later. Commonly, a cloned car is sold in a different state that the one the clean VIN was registered in. If you run VIN lookup a notice that the vehicle was registered in a different state, that may be a sign of VIN cloning.

How to Avoid Buying a Car with a Cloned vehicle?

• It very important to inspect the VIN number printed on the vehicle of the VIN plate and make sure there are no signs of any kind of job done on the VIN: signs of filing, scratches, repainting, molding, chemical action. Changing a VIN plate or altering the printed VIN requires some skills so some traces of VIN cloning may be left. Check the dealers reputation, read reviews (not ads!), make sure it is long established in the market.
• Don’t be shy to ask the seller various sorts of questions about the car. Get the copy of the documents and see if the answers match. If something seems suspicious go away.
• Commonly, a cloned car is sold in a different state that the one the clean VIN was registered in.
• If you run VIN lookup and notice that the vehicle was registered in a different state, that may be a sign of VIN cloning.