Waking up to the morning post became a dreaded ordeal for 24-year-old Eathan Cooper as he found himself inundated with fines totaling thousands of pounds due to car cloning. It all started last summer when he received his first penalty for a bus lane violation in Essex while he was away on a trip to Madrid. Since then, Mr. Cooper, a sales professional based in Cambridgeshire, has been wrongly issued numerous fines for various offenses such as parking, speeding, and driving through bus lanes.
Mr. Cooper’s ordeal is a result of car cloning, a scheme where criminals steal or replicate another car’s registration plates, often opting for plates from a similar-looking vehicle. This fraudulent activity leads to fines and penalties being accrued under the victim’s name, who only becomes aware of the issue once the fines begin arriving. The Metropolitan Police advises individuals who suspect their vehicle registration has been cloned to report it promptly. Once reported, affected individuals can then contact the issuing organization, explain the cloning situation, inform them of police involvement, request cancellation, and provide supporting evidence if available.
Despite the fines being addressed to him and related to a vehicle bearing his registration, all the penalties were for incidents in locations he had not visited. The fines kept streaming in for alleged offenses across London and Essex, all associated with a black BMW identical to his on ANPR cameras and sharing the same vehicle registration. Mr. Cooper was faced with six TfL fines, over six bus lane fines, and multiple parking and speeding tickets, requiring him to embark on a journey to clear his name and avoid further penalties
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