Car stolen - help needed understanding the crime

What address did the log book say on it?

Sorry but buyer beware! There are simple rules to follow when purchasing a car, it seems you violated many of the alerts.

Should have raised the 1st worry.

should have raised the 2nd worry.

Should have been the point where you aborted any further negotiations, after all is he the only person selling a 2001 GTI ?

WRONG ! your lucky you got the vehicle, you could have got jumped at the station.

It would be interesting to know how many keys you were given with the vehicle, these cars come with immobiliser and alarm as standard.

Even when selling a car I won't except cash , just hope you paid for the car with 'dirty' money.

You could have passed by later to see if the car was there before purchase, really sorry to hear about your episode.

Lifted from the 2Pass.co.uk site,

Buying from a Private Seller This should be cheaper than buying from a dealer. It is also riskier. The car may be stolen. It may have been used as security for a loan or hire agreement and actually belong to a finance company. You have fewer legal rights if you buy privately. The car must be as described but the other rules don't apply. If a private seller lies about the condition of a car, you can sue for your losses - if you can find the seller. Some dealers pretend to be private sellers to avoid their legal obligations and to get rid of faulty or over-priced cars. They advertise in local newspapers and shop windows. Signs to look out for include:

i)ads which give a mobile phone number or specify a time to call. It may be a public phone box, not the seller's home ii)the same phone number appears in several ads; iii)when you phone about the car, the seller asks 'which one?'; iV)the seller wants to bring the car to you or meet you somewhere, rather than you going to the seller's home.

Or try here Or PP

Similar thing happened to someone in uk.rec.driving a while back. Seem to remember the car was eventually tracked down because it had some of the buyer's wife's papers in the boot. It's a very simple scam - the seller just hangs onto a spare set of keys and then comes and nicks it from your house. If you buy it and never put your name down on the logbook, nobody will ever even know who you were.

Hopefully that link will work, if not search for "Is this a new scam??" on uk.rec.driving

If you have the same amount of keys in your possession that were provided with the car on purchase, there will be no reason for the insurer to dispute cover.

-- Jason

I asked to keep the entire logbook and send off the relevant section myself and he agreed. I filled out my details, he checked it and signed the current owner part. Yesterday I sent the logbook off to the DVLA. But it is obviously possible that he scanned my address and committed it to memory.

The possible scenarios I can see are this.

1) It was stolen by a professional gang (no glass broken)

2) He stole his own car back (assuming he was the original owner)

3) The car is originally a stolen vehicle with false Logbook (cloned from another car)

4) The papers and car were stolen recently and he sold it on before the car could make it onto the Crime reference database (therefore showing as HPI clear)

[...]

Did you check the HPI yourself? HPI has a limited compensation if stolen, but only for the client of the search. Hence, don't rely on sellers HPI.

He sells you a car and refuses to take you to his home so you don't actually know where he really lives. He sells you the car and you fill in your address on the V5. He then goes round your house later with a spare set of keys and drives off.

Don't worry, your car is stolen.

That's probably just another way of 'commissioning' since cars have become increasingly difficult to hot-wire.

Seems simple to me

you bought a car and paid for it, did all the checks

After you got home, someone nicked it

Ultimately this could happen to anyone - you could surely buy a second-hand car from network Q, and have someone then nick it if they had a spare key. It does not need to be the previous owner - anyone who nicked a car using a key (from breaking into the owners house for example) could then get a key cut - and steal the car a second time if the locks had not been changed

first mistake always arrange to meet at the sellers house, and make sure it's the same one as on the log book if it isn't, turn around and walk away, even though you may be given a perfectly reasonable excuse

mistake number 2 if he was going to sell the car, why didn't he have these documents with him? and why was he in such a hurry to rush off, persumably in the very car he came to sell you?

i may be repeating myself here, but if he was willing to do a deal, why leave everything behind and need to use the car to get osmewhere afterwards? alarm bells hsould have been ringing by this time

the next mistake cheque or bankers draft you hsould have checked the log book to make sure you got the payment maid to that named individual at least it could have been traced back

i have always done a HPi check before parting with any chas (once i did it when the car was given to me for FREE!!!!!) just to make sure i had a bit of paper in my hand to say the car was all well and good where is your bit of paper/letter that they send you confirming/denying anything is wrong?

where are the keys? still got them? has the seller got any spares? and even then, how did he find otu where you lived if you've got the log book and paid cash?

a long shot, but why? was it taxed? because thats the only people who would take it away if it was on the public highway (or visable from in some cases)

good

no phone number? easy, with chips being as cheap as the proverbial chip (less than a fiver for a new number) this is not going to worry soeone who may have had it away with a few grand in their pocket but this intruiges me, "no longer lives there"? so they DID live there before? did you give these deatils to plod? and your insurer? the insurance company will hire better lawyers than plod will to chase back their money and give the potential blagger a hard time in the future

the car was stolen, as soon as the insurance company is notified they will be on the look out for it if it turns up within (normally) 6 weeks they will give it back to you or pay you out if it's any later they will pay out and declare the car either missing or lost or whatever they do in such cases either way, you need to wait out this period of time and see what happens

if it's the seller, how did they get your address so quickly? unless you gave it to him?

hope it all works out

I understand all of that, at this stage I would be overjoyed if I knew for certain that the car was 100% legal prior to me buying it. That way as you state it is a simple matter of theft (doesn't matter who stole it) and I would get some of what I paid back from the insurers. However I have a nagging doubt that the car may have been previously stolen and perhaps a fake log book knocked up to mirror any legitimate car on the road (i.e. cloning).

The truth will emerge if and when I get the new V5 in my name. As I previously mentioned I filled this in myself, we both signed it and I duly sent it off.

I've still got the key (black rectanglular flip thing with alarm-remote) my house was not broken into.

And I did indeed send a copy of *a* log book to Swansea, however I filled it in front of him and he scanned the document before adding his signature to the bottom. I am guessing that he made a mental note of my address and therefore had no further need for the V5 document.

There is a million-and-one "what ifs" and things I should/could have done better. But at the end of the day I'm just a country bumkin who now lives and works in London.. I guess I needed something like this to force me into mistrusting people as a rule, rather than as an exception.

Cheers to everyone who responded, its been an education.

-- Stan

In message , Stan writes

I wonder how many times he can do this in the time it takes to hit the HPI database? Sell it, steal it back that night then sell it the next day.

The new requirement is that the seller sends the logbook to DVLA, as they are the ones who are liable for fines etc in the meantime. That means the seller will know where you live - he has it on the V5(c). Nasty situation now that DVLA has changed the previous arrangement for ownership transfer.

In this case it could be he noted your address at some point.

I'm not sure how you could pay for a car with a personal cheque, unless you give him it then wait for it to clear before you collect the car, thus trusting him with your money meanwhile. A banker's draft or Building Society cheque can both be forgeries too, so that's not totally safe for a legitimate seller.

Thanks for warning us of this danger, and hope it all works out OK in the end.

If you have the same number of keys in your posession that you had when you bought the car (i.e you havn't had your set of keys nicked) then they won't dispute it. They probly wouldn't dispute it if the keys had been nicked, although from their point of view you could have given the keys to someone to nick it. But whats to say you didn't have another set and give it to someone to nick your car? They can't prove the locks weren't popped and it wasn't hotwired.

You'll be fine from an insurance POV, just bad luck i reckon :(

A nice steering wheel lock from halfords might have done the trick!!

When you say you've still got THE key, I assume you mean you've still got BOTH keys with immob chips in them and/or two key fobs?

--Nick.