Scrap Car Scam Warning - Only Use the Right People
Monday 21st January, 2013
Consumers wanting to scrap their cars are warned not to allow them to fall in to the hands of unscrupulous scrap dealers Warwickshire County Council’s Trading Standards Service is warning.
Consumers are allowing their vehicles to be taken by scrap merchants without the proper paperwork being completed, and then not receiving the money they were promised.
Many of these ‘dodgy’ scrap dealers advertise on the Internet and some are using false names and addresses.
Having handed over their car, the owners then find out later that their vehicles are not scrapped at all, but are instead ‘repaired’ and sold on or used by criminals. And all the time, the original owner continues to be responsible for the vehicle!
Consumers have not only complained about not being paid for their cars but have also reported receiving penalties for vehicles they thought were no longer their responsibility. These include motoring offence fines and penalty points, parking fines or DVLA fines for not having a properly insured or taxed vehicle.
Warwickshire Trading Standards has received a number of reports recently about this scam and is therefore issuing this advice:
- If you want to scrap your car you should arrange for it to be taken to an authorised treatment facility (ATF) where it will be dismantled in an environmentally friendly way.
- The ATF will give you a Certificate of Destruction (CoD) within 7 days. This is proof that the vehicle has been destroyed and you’re not responsible for it any more (the ATF will tell DVLA that you’re no longer responsible for the vehicle).
- The ATF will tell DVLA, who will update the vehicle record to say it’s been destroyed. Then you should complete the V5C/3 ‘Notification of sale or transfer’ part of your V5C vehicle registration certificate and send it to DVLA.
- You should get a letter saying you’re no longer responsible for the vehicle. If you don’t get this letter within 4 weeks, call DVLA.
- If your insurance company decides to write off your vehicle, you’ll need to hand the vehicle over to them to dispose of. This means you will need to complete the V5C/3 ‘Notification of sale or transfer’ section of your registration certificate and send it to DVLA and give the rest of the registration certificate to your insurance company.
- The DVLA will fine owners of vehicles not displaying a valid tax licence. They can face an automatic penalty of £80 plus a fine of up to £1000.
- More information is available here: https://www.gov.uk/scrapped-and-written-off-vehicles/overview
- To report a rogue scrap car dealer you can contact the Environment Agency on 0800 80 70 60.
