V5's and VINs for sale.

[Bobblegut]

Does anyone else realise how many dodgy vins and v5s are being sold on Ebay ? Is there anyway something can be to put pressure on them to stop this , perhaps a magazine article on vehicle theft ?
I have seen in the last month around 10 mk1 escort identitys , some blatant , some offering to sweep the shell up for them etc . Others selling them a ' memroblia ' with the vin tag .These included high value rs2000 and mexico .Also a few Anglias , a few minis including 1275gt . Its so blatant and considering the amount of these cars that are getting pinched it just gives them exactely what they need to do it .

[mr rusty]

Easy- just report the item to ebay- I do when I come across them and they will pull the item. There's so much stuff on there that they can't possibly police it themselves, and rely on punters to do it. There's a category for reporting vehicle ID's when you click on report this item.

[Bobblegut]

Ive found the report item only works about 1/10 times usually .

[Mitsuru]

Ive found the report item only works about 1/10 times usually .

Thats if your lucky, I've reported a couple of cars on ebay. I have even called ebay and they
told me I didn't know what I was talking about, guess what it was a mk1 neon!!
(err red rag to bull!)
It was just the blatent things such as they said the car was imported in Nov 93 and had a
1400cc engine. the neon only started production in dec93 and wasn't sold till may 94 as
they needed to build up the supply first! \ans the export engines were 1.6, 1.8 & 2.0 , I've
seen a rare 1.8 but never a 1.6.

Even if you have proof of what you are talking about and con prove that the seller is braking
the law they don't want to know. Why because the get a small commission on what is sold!

[TerryG]

There are some things (such as specific details of a car) that ebay don't care about. Sellers often put descriptions in wrong. How many cars do you see advertised with a 2cc engine? That doesn't warrant pulling the auction.
However, someone offering V5s for sale is in breach of their policy. I have reported several and they have pulled each auction.
If you see it, report it. if ebay don't act when they have been made aware then the liability shifts to them. They know this so act promptly.

[JohnE]

I have reported multiple obviously illegal listings and had so many ignored I've almost given up. I suspect (but can't prove) that items are less likely to get removed when there are significant bids on them - no doubt this would be strongly denied. The most recent example I (and several others) reported was a MK1 Escort with a photo of an almost totally dissolved pile of bits in what seemed to be some undergrowth which were a different colour to the recorded car. I like a restoration challenge - but even if my suspicion about the validity of the photo wasn't true - there was no way on earth that pile of rust was ever going to form the basis of a car.

There's a thread running over at piston heads (I suspect some overlap) on this subject.

I am disappointed but not entirely surprised that the Police/VOSA/whoever aren't taking this more seriously and like the OP I think car mags could do a useful expose - unless of course they fear alienating a section of readers who may be engaged in this illegal activity.

[SirTainleyBarking]

They did pull down one listing I reported for an unconnected product (Skincream containing illegal steroids) I think it helped that the medicines control agency had put a notice out. It also helped I think that I reported the illegal listing to the MCA, who have very big stompy boots indeed

[bnicho]

I'm a fan of the Daihatsu Charade Turbo models, especially the GTTi and GTXX. So I regularly search for "Charade Turbo" listings.

Every time I run that search this thing comes up:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/281339945668?

Notice the keyword spamming? I've reported it maybe six times for keyword spamming. Each time it seems to disappear only to be relisted a few days later in exactly the same format and wording. It drives me nuts!

Regards,