TAIPING: After spending thousands of ringgit to fulfill their desire of owning luxury cars, the owners' dreams are dashed, sometimes after only three days, when their cars are seized.
This was revealed by Perak Road Transport Department (JPJ) director Ramli Awang Seberang on the risks for people who buy "cloned" cars.
When a car is cloned, its registration number is replicated and used on other cars, amounting to an identity theft.
Ramli Awang said the longest someone could show off a cloned car he bought was three years and the shortest was merely three days before it was detected and seized by the JPJ.
He said the JPJ does not have any problem detecting cloned cars on the road "because they appeared different physically from the original."
"Most buyers are from the middle (income) group who are passionate about buying a luxury car at a low price without taking into account the things they have to abide by," he said here recently.
He said JPJ found cloned car syndicates used social media sites to lure people to buy the cars at RM10,000 to RM20,000 each.
"Investigations on bank transactions found the amounts of most payments were below RM10,000 while the balance were paid when the buyer met the salesman.
"Some salesmen do not turn up to hand over the car ownership grants to the buyer as promised, and were also uncontactable," he said.
Elaborating further on operations to detect cloned cars in Perak, Ramli Awang said that 125 vehicles of various makes worth more than RM3 million had been seized since since operations started in May. He said the cars were seized in Ipoh (73), Manjung (20), Taiping (12), Tapah (10), Kuala Kangsar (six) and Teluk Intan (four).
He said most of the cloned cars seized were various models of Honda including Jazz, Odyssey, Civic and Stream other than Toyota, Subaru, Audi, BMW, Mazda, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Mini Cooper and Volvo.
Ramli Awang said investigations found the chasis number of cloned cars were not in the JPJ registration database while their registration numbers and road taxes were fakes.
He warned that those using fake registration numbers and road taxes could be charged in court under the JPJ Act 1987.
"After being issued with summonses, they will be charged in court, warrants of arrest will be issued against them if they fail to turn up in court and their names will be blacklisted," he said, adding, to date, no buyers of cloned cars in Perak had been charged as investigations were still ongoing.
Ramli Awang said JPJ would also apply to the court to dispose off the seized cloned vehicles.
"There are many risks in using a cloned car. The buyer will also not be able to make an insurance claim if there is an accident," he said.
