gr1nch
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2016
- Messages
- 729
- Location
- Louth, Lincolnshire
- Car
- 2017 W222 S350d AMG Line Premium Plus : Iridium Silver and Black Nappa
Apologies, this one turned out longer than I'd expected, as the concept came up that VINs could also help thieves steal our beloved cars to order...
Yesterday my M-B dealer sent me the VIN of my car which is being built in a week or so (hooray!). I was about to upload the VIN into that Ukrainian website to see what output came back, but it occured to me this is very specific, private data about my car, that I'd be giving to a third party, who has no enforceable obligation to me to keep it private.
Is there any damage that could be done with a full set of info about a car (e.g. number plate, VIN, name of owner, etc) by a request to the DVLA, M-B, etc? Or increase the chance your car is targeted and stolen*?
* On that thought, conceivably, there could be a "dark" website that advertises all cars with known VINs and, say area/address,. So steal to order with an Autotrader-like interface. Thieves would then "bid" to steal the car through that website and receivers would simply choose one, place the order and wait for the car to be "delivered". It would make the bad guys lives easier, if a car's full detailed spec by VIN and its address by any means possible, e.g. Registration + VIN lookup (?), social networks, online address books, etc. So to minimise risk, I'm thinking of not making my VIN public knowledge.
Yesterday my M-B dealer sent me the VIN of my car which is being built in a week or so (hooray!). I was about to upload the VIN into that Ukrainian website to see what output came back, but it occured to me this is very specific, private data about my car, that I'd be giving to a third party, who has no enforceable obligation to me to keep it private.
Is there any damage that could be done with a full set of info about a car (e.g. number plate, VIN, name of owner, etc) by a request to the DVLA, M-B, etc? Or increase the chance your car is targeted and stolen*?
* On that thought, conceivably, there could be a "dark" website that advertises all cars with known VINs and, say area/address,. So steal to order with an Autotrader-like interface. Thieves would then "bid" to steal the car through that website and receivers would simply choose one, place the order and wait for the car to be "delivered". It would make the bad guys lives easier, if a car's full detailed spec by VIN and its address by any means possible, e.g. Registration + VIN lookup (?), social networks, online address books, etc. So to minimise risk, I'm thinking of not making my VIN public knowledge.
