Blanking your number plate out when posting pics of your pride and joy?

Draeger

Draeger

Draeger

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Is this still as relevant as it once was? On a motorcycle forum I frequent in the last few days a thread has popped up with the OP vehemently maintaining that if you don't blank your plate out you will befall all number of horrible consequences.

Is it still de-facto to blank your plate out when posting pics of your bike/car online?
 
Chances of anything happening are pretty low but I'd still do it as a precaution - especially if you have a vehicle that is particularly desirable/relatively uncommon, etc. I know awhile back there was a couple of cases of people having their plates cloned that had published a lot of pics unedited on PH.
 
Rroff said:
Chances of anything happening are pretty low but I'd still do it as a precaution - especially if you have a vehicle that is particularly desirable/relatively uncommon, etc.
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What? That makes it even less relevant to do it.

Surely the biggest "risk" of posting your plate is for a relatively mundane car, that then ends up getting it's plates cloned. Far more chance of someone wanting to clone a random Focus than a Ferrari La Ferrari which they can't get hold of in the first place?
 
paradigm said:
What? That makes it even less relevant to do it.

Surely the biggest "risk" of posting your plate is for a relatively mundane car, that then ends up getting it's plates cloned. Far more chance of someone wanting to clone a random Focus than a Ferrari La Ferrari which they can't get hold of in the first place?
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If its really really rare/one off then yeah its kind of pointless - but if its uncommon but not so unique there aren't a few around then the plates make it really easy to find where one of those vehicles will actually be (those are quite often the cars stolen to order, etc.).

Cloned plates a bit of another story as the chances are fairly low but I'd still hide them so as to not make it too easy especially if your pics hit google with a description so it would pop up from a simple google of the car make and colour, etc.
 
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Rroff said:
Cloned plates a bit of another story as the chances are fairly low but I'd still hide them so as to not make it too easy especially if your pics hit google with a description so it would pop up from a simple google of the car make and colour, etc.
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^^ what he said

If someone wants plates for a certain make/model/colour of vehicle for untoward reasons then if it is easily searchable you could end up with the hassle of having cloned plates.

But at the end of the day it would be easier to look somewhere like Autotrader.
 
Would be easier to go on auto trader to find a plate, not a sub forum on a PC hardware forum which isn't easily searchable.
 
LiE said:
Would be easier to go on auto trader to find a plate, not a sub forum on a PC hardware forum which isn't easily searchable.
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A lot ends up on google search results, etc. though from forums - often with enough surrounding information from posts, etc. that they'd appear on a related search.
 
Got to make sure to blank out everything except the "65" so everyone knows that you can afford a new car
 
It's a great fear, displaying your plate in a web forum.

What next? The plates fully visible to all displayed on the front and back when your driving on the public highway? :p
 
I'm not too worried about my licence plate myself. It's not like it's kept hidden the rest of the time and I doubt anyone will give two hoots about it. (I've got a hyundai i10, not really the pinacle of high end motors). If someone did want a plate to clone, they could easily enough walk around any street for 10 minutes and find something similar (or go on autotrader).
 
I think it's more important making sure theres no Geo-Caching in the metadata. There's a fella who has just had his new RS6 stolen at gunpoint by an eastern European gang. All his forum pics of the car at his house had his Lat/Long in the metadata (Geo-caching on iPhone) which is enough, when combined with Street view, to pin point his house in Birmingham.

Now whether thats what the gang used or if he was just unlucky no one knows but I always remove it, plus my plates, plus give an non-exact location on Forums.
 
Scania said:
It's a great fear, displaying your plate in a web forum.

What next? The plates fully visible to all displayed on the front and back when your driving on the public highway? :p
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Yup this!

Whats even more annoying is people blanking out plates on ad's when they're trying to sell a car, would be handy if people could get accurate insurance quotes eh? :P

I even had one refuse to provide the plate or the MOT number as it means I could "steal their car" :confused: Look if you're not even gonna let me check the history of what I'm trying to buy then I aint gonna entertain yours now am I despite how many emails you send :p
 
~Divine~Wind~ said:
Yup this!

Whats even more annoying is people blanking out plates on ad's when they're trying to sell a car, would be handy if people could get accurate insurance quotes eh? :P
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This - if the ad isnt showing the plates then it gets ignored, maybe not so much for something a bit "special" but for something run of the mill e.g. a focus, there are so many options that it's easier to just skip that ad and go on to the next one

eatcustard said:
Use another cars reg number of the same make and year, it would not be hard.
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And the same trim level, number of doors, body style, gearbox and engine...
 
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