Cloned number plate / Category X?

[sarahb083]

Hello, we found out last week that someone has cloned our number plate. We reported it to the met police and the person on the phone told my husband that our car would now be classed as a stolen car (category X), significantly decreasing the value. I can't see anything online about this being the case, and this doesn't seem to be what Category X means.

Has anyone had their number plate stolen and was your car classed as stolen?

Our motorbike plate was stolen. Police just said it was likely to be used in fuel theft but we wouldn't get "blamed" for it.

Thanks @PuttingDownRoots . Bump for more responses

My number plate was cloned, no it didn’t result in my car getting classed as stolen. The only trouble I had was that I reported it to my insurer for info only, just in case the car using the stolen plates was involved in an accident and I got blamed. My insurance company recorded it as a claim resulting in my premium going up massively the next year! But it was a mistake and they did sort it out.

As far as I'm aware a marker is put on the registration number of the car so it pings on ANPR cameras. You may get pulled over more often by the police, and are usually recommended to keep at least photos of your actual driving documents, including your V5 with you.

A friend had so much hassle after having her plate cloned that she eventually cracked and bought a cheap personalised plate. Slightly extreme but solved the problem completely.

We had our numberplates literally stolen - in the space of about an hour one afternoon outside our house some nice person came along and pulled it off. It was the type held on sticky pads and had lasted 7 or so years under the previous owner but only a month on the mean streets of South London. We immediately reported it to the Police.

We then had to drive plateless to our local Halfords where we had to persuade them to make some new ones for us with only our insurance document as proof of ownership (it turns out they need to see the V5 form before making new ones but after some discussion were happy to let us have them) - we then had to attach them in the car park so we could drive home.

Police phoned the next day to say that someone had used the plates to drive off without paying for petrol but because it was clearly a different car to ours they would do nothing further. We drove the car for another five years but werent ever stopped by the Police.