VIN Numbers

[GregTexas]

I noticed some people post their VIN numbers like this 8456X or 8456XX. Is this being too paranoid or am I missing something? What could someone do sinister with your VIN number? Can't you walk up to any car and get the VIN number?

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

This has been discussed before. There are varying degrees of privacy concerns here. I prefer to have my VIN up here; it's helped for sure when Tesla reached out to me in the past when I posted about any issues.

 

[Rockster]

There were cases a while back of people snagging a VIN and filing the federal tax credit form for themselves. When the real owner attempted to do so, the IRS rejected it because the VIN had been used before.

 

[GregTexas]

There were cases a while back of people snagging a VIN and filing the federal tax credit form for themselves. When the real owner attempted to do so, the IRS rejected it because the VIN had been used before.

Wow, pretty easy for the IRS to catch the bad guy. It's the one they gave a $7,500 credit.

 

[bonaire]

There were cases a while back of people snagging a VIN and filing the federal tax credit form for themselves. When the real owner attempted to do so, the IRS rejected it because the VIN had been used before.

What's to stop them from grabbing a European or Asian Vin # and using that for an American tax return? Is the Vin # identifying the country of purchase?
Also, I noticed that in 2014, a lot more Vin #s in series were given out than cars built - would the IRS know all the Vin #s that were valid? Seems there is a lot of room for IRS fraud if no duplicates were used by the bad guys - or, if two bad guys picked the same Vin # - they both are in tax trouble.