Can anyone tell me the reasoning behind covering plate

numbers when displaying vehicles on any Forum Sites?

Everyone see your plate # when driving so why the secrecy,

could never figure that one out.

 

To preserve anonymity.
NOT on the road, but on internet forums.

i personally , don't want to have a heated discussion with some "wacko" on ANY forum, and get stalked after.
Unfortunately, money can't buy class NOR values.

 

I agree; no real reason; I even got an IM from someone encouraging me to hide my Plate from a pic on here; just no reason; If someone went off in here, most could not track the plate anyway!!

 

It's not the forum members I'm necessarily concerned about. Plenty of passersby. Lexus usually equates to other nice things in the home, and when they track your plate, they can just wait for you to post about your long vacation ....taken plenty of burglary reports under similar circumstances. Just saying. You can do whatever you want, but there are those of us that have been exposed too often to the darker side of human behavior and choose to take a more precautionary approach.I've never tried to track a plate without ncic /cjis but it can be done.

 

Wouldn't precautionary behavior also include not volunteering your personal information on the internet? Understand the need for precaution but cutting down your online profile overall would seem to be a better option. Especially if you've already been 'exposed'

 

With your plate number, it's very easy to know who owns it and where's it registered ( where you park the car).
a lot of agencies and companies have access to that information.
maybe you're thinking, police, DMV, FBI.. yup!
BUT have you considered Insurance companies? yeah, the guy who's giving you a quote/ or handling your claim can pull up that information.
How confident are you that on his free time, he's not checking out the name of that Hot chick he saw driving a coupe?

Not convinced yet?

Here's a case that my "law enforcement friend" mentioned a couple of years back.
There was man who was posting on Ebay and craigslist about cars for sale.
he introduced himself as the " dealer"/broker for the owner of said cars.
He posted pictures and even car fax report of the car/SUV that he claims he's selling.

Here's the catch, to be able to test drive the car, there's a REFUNDABLE $50 to save the date for the test-drive.
long story short, nobody got their $50 back.

Complainants even drove to the "owners" houses asking for their money back.
OF Course, the Registered owners were scratching their heads, not knowing that their cars were posted online

Most complainants decided to call it a day and consider it a life lesson.
but a handful few pursued the case in small claims court.

i don't know what happened to the case, but i'm sure the owners of the car did not take it lightly.
they have to prove that they were victims too, and they never intended to sell the car in the first place.

The detectives said that their working theory is that a bunch of kids who go driving in nice neighborhood and took some pictures of different cars.

 

Always oddball cases; I choose not to hide under a rock.......

 

I tend to agree, as one plate #'s are always exposed to the criminal element in the public.

 

Ditto, we no longer live in a cocoon, we're photographed every where we go. Everyone has a smartphone now with a camera too.

 

What's even more funny is the people who take the time to block their plates are probably posting pictures with the geo tag infomation embedded and have no idea how much information they are giving out by doing so.

 

IMO no big reason to hide your plates if your vehicle is otherwise stock. If you have the type of car that is showy and post about the bling and power mods, it does get the minds of those creative thieves going. Posting pics with your plates just statistically increases your odds that that thief/vandal will come after your stuff and specifically target your car.

 

It can be a little scary when someone does a little bit of research and can tell exactly where you live - even without the license plate number, just by pictures.

 

I couldn't agree more. I'm not concerned with members here but there are plenty of guest who visit this site that might be in your area that might have seen mods or things you've mentioned doing to your car or in your home. You would be surprised how easy it is to get access to peoples personal info by just entering someone's plate number. There are plenty of sites you could pay to get this info. Some guy started stalking my friend who has a nicely modded car and my friend got the stalkers plate number. He did some research on his own and paid a site and was able to get the stalkers info and reported it to the police department. They went to the stalkers house and my friend filed a restraining order and he got his plate number changed just so the stalker would leave him alone.

 

WHEN criminals target you, they WILL always find a way to get what they want. Regardless.
Sending them an invite, whether leaving your doors unlocked OR tweeting everything your doing. Well that's on you.


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No one has to pay for anything these days as people volunteer everything. The amount of information one of you in this thread freely puts out is beyond staggering. 2 keystrokes to see your online footprint and a crook will know more about you than any license plate check can reveal.