What Is the VIN number, and How Can It Help Prevent Fraud and Theft?
Anyone who has ever owned a car or considered buying one should be familiar with the abbreviation VIN. Your Vehicle Identification Number is series of numbers and letters unique to your vehicle and used for identification. When maintaining any sort of record about cars, like registration or structural damage, the VIN is recorded to create a vehicle history that shows everything about your car.
Where is the VIN number on a car?
It is easy to find the VIN, which contains 17 numbers and is typically found on a plate in your dashboard or the driver’s doorjamb. You will also find it stamped onto the firewall of the engine. The VIN can show you all the most crucial information concerning your vehicle, such as its brand, year, and model, in a series of numbers containing letters. You can either learn to interpret this information yourself or put it into a website that interprets the information for you.
Information Stored with the VIN
Nearly every piece of information related to a car, SUV, or truck is linked to its VIN. This includes ownership records and sales. This number is used to record information about repairs and general vehicle service. If a vehicle has a salvage title from severe damage, this is also stored in the VIN. For those who are more familiar with VINs, you can even use it to figure out the model, year, and make of a vehicle. Those worried about recalls can enter their car’s 17-digit number into the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s page and check VIN number for recalls to see if any affect the vehicle.
How to run a VIN number? NICB Information
Because of the information linked to a VIN, it is useful for preventing fraud. Go to the National Insurance Crime Bureau’s website and use its VIN Check feature to check legal information related to a vehicle. This tool is useful for those buying a used car since it lets you be sure that it wasn’t stolen. The system can inform you if someone stole the vehicle and it wasn’t recovered or if an automotive insurance company reported it as salvage. One of these obviously involves theft while the latter involves insurance fraud. For both situations, don’t buy a used car whose VIN has this information in the NICB system.
