You saw a man taking pictures of Vin's on cars and called the police because he was also looking in the cars Why would he want VIN's?

Answer 1

That all depends, was the person a tow driver, a repo-man, or just a common person randomly looking into cars? Was the car parked in a development where parking passes/stickers are used, or were the cars parked in driveways?

Many times a tow company will be contracted to these developments where parking permits are required or where assigned spacing is used. The purpose in this instance is to notify the police department. The VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) is used to identify that specific vehicle, so when it is reported stolen after being towed for being illegally parked, the police department can identify the car a having been removed legally, and not actually stolen.

When it comes to repossessions, however, these guys are a whole other type of creature. They are usually working with someone else, or will do a little scouting before repo-ing a car. They could either have a guy go out dressed in plain clothes, while another waits in the shadows somewhere for the confirmation that this is the car to be repo-ed, or go out dressed in plain clothes and come back in a short time with a truck to repo the vehicle. In this case, the VIN is also used by the finance company that ordered the repo to identify the vehicle. In the repo business it would be quicker to snap a pic of the vin and keep walking so as not to let the people who are delinquent on their payments know that their vehicle is being towed, In this case most towns will also require thw PD be notified during the removal of a repo-ed vehicle.

If the vehicle is a newer vehicle, there isn't really much a common thief could do with your VIN, but I have heard of duplicating VINs on older vehicles pre 1980's when it was harder to keep track of things, but everything is entered in a database that all registry's share and search through for such duplicates now. The only way a thief could possibly gain any benefit fron taking pictures of the VINs is if he were to do some heavy duty mettling in the works of the public transportation department. The VIN or plate number could be referenced through a local registry website, disk, or catalog and giving your name and address. Then they could access your driver's license and or your social security number if they were to cross reference the info, then they could steal your identity. But the chances fo that happening are highly unlikely, number one, due to the fact that this info at your local registry is priveleged info., along with the info on your drivers license. The chances of your common thief even thinking of this is highly unlikely anyway. Plus this type of action would leave a paper trail to catch up to the criminal. All websites containing any of this info asks for your name, log-in, password info. All disks are released to only qualified users who would actually need the info and those disks are registered to the user in order to track them back to the user. So it's unlikely that would happen.

Beyond these reasons it would be tough to say why anyone would actually want to look at anyone's VIN numbers and photograph it.