Private Plate Supplier Calls for Clarity in BBC Investigation

Following an investigation from BBC London into the sale of number plates on Amazon, private plate supplier Regtransfers calls for further information.
The investigation, published last week on the BBC website, exposed seven Amazon sellers supplying car number plates to consumers without verifying legal documents first. By law, a company cannot sell valid plates without confirming proper documentation – such as a driving licence or V5 document – before completing the transaction.

In response to the investigation, Amazon has taken steps to remove the listings, and is moving forward to ban the sale of all number plates on its platform, with the exception of novelty plates.

Regtransfers, however, have contacted the BBC for further information, having spotted what appeared to be a potential flaw in the investigation.

“We welcome investigations such as this, as well as Amazon’s move to help combat the supply of illegally supplied number plates”, comments Regtransfers CEO Mark Trimbee. “We’ve reported many times on the issues presented by number plate cloning, highlighting the plight of motorists who have been incorrectly penalised because copies of their number plates have been used to commit a range of car-related offences.”

Recognising the efforts of the DVLA and Home Office, Trimbee adds that much has been achieved already to combat the issue of number plate cloning, but knows that there is more that still needs to be done.

“The few illicit suppliers now blocked from selling on Amazon represent merely the tip of a much larger iceberg”, explains Trimbee. “Many more of these companies operate with impunity on sites like eBay, by claiming to provide ‘show plates’ for off-road use. So long as this aspect goes unaddressed, the issue of cloned plates will remain.”

Turning his attention to the recent BBC report, however, Trimbee outlines a potential flaw in the investigation, around which the company has requested clarification.

”The number plates shown in the article’s images – BBC1 LDN and BBC2 LDN – aren’t genuine registrations in a valid format. They could be sold as “show” or “novelty” plates without the need for documentation.”

“The law only requires documentation to be provided for number plates showing valid UK registration formats. Supplying the plates shown in the BBC’s examples without documentation would not have broken any rule or regulation – genuine documentation cannot exist for a non-existent registration number. If these specific plates were advertised as being road legal, however, or the BBC had attempted to affix them to a car and pass them off as genuine plates, that would be a different matter, but it’s not clear from the report exactly what the parameters of the investigation were.”

The article, published on BBC’s website on 12th February, does not provide explicit details of the plates its investigators attempted to purchase. After Regtransfers’ initial contact with the BBC, an update was made, identifying the plates shown in the image – BBC1 LDN and BBC2 LDN – as being “for illustrative purposes”.

While this answers the question around the plates included in the image, there has yet to be any indication of other plates the BBC attempted to purchase – and whether or not they would have needed to provide documentation in order to make their purchases.

While omitting any mention of the plates the BBC attempted to purchase is likely to avoid inadvertently publishing the details of an existing plate registered to a road-faring vehicle, the lack of clarity in the article has led to Regtransfers questioning the accuracy of their investigation.

“We’re not trying to absolve any wrongdoings on the part of the suppliers – if they’re advertising products incorrectly, or are indeed attempting to sell number plates without proper checks, the investigation has succeeded in aiding Amazon to crack down on this sort of activity”, explains Trimbee. “However, since it’s not clear from the report exactly how the BBC conducted their investigation, or the plates they attempted to purchase, it’s unclear as to whether or not documentation would actually have been needed in all cases. That’s what we’re interested in clearing up.”

Regtransfers have reached out to the BBC for comment, but have received no response so far.