Thousands of motorists are receiving fines: it’s a scam and here’s how to avoid it.
Receiving a letter from ANTAI, or the National Agency for Automated Crime Processing, is never a pleasure. In 99% of cases it is to inform you that you have been caught for your driving on the road and that you will have to go to the checkout. But worse, and much more disconcerting, is when reading the letter you do not understand what you are accused of. Or rather that the offense committed does not concern you at all but that it is you who is asked to pay the bill and that it is on your driving license that the points will be dropped.
Tens of thousands of motorists experience this mishap every year. And the phenomenon continues to grow as scams multiply. A new scam has been multiplying for some time throughout France at the expense of many drivers who have nothing to reproach themselves for. What is it about ? Bad people use license plates belonging to ordinary drivers so that they can commit as many traffic offenses as they want without ever receiving tickets. How do they do ? Nothing too complicated as many websites today offer to make license plates without even asking for the vehicle’s registration document. Obtaining a replica of an existing plate is therefore child’s play, so all the scammers have to do is attach one to the front and one to the rear of their car and that’s it.
In France, as elsewhere, the registration plate, made up of a combination of numbers and letters, allows authorities to track vehicles and identify them in the event of traffic violations or offenses. By usurping the combination of license plates already on the market, the crooks therefore slip through the cracks while the scammed motorists receive the reports and must prove their good faith in order not to have to pay fines which can go as high as from 11 to 135 euros depending on the seriousness of the alleged acts. If this happens to you, do not pay the fine before contesting it because the law allows you to do so. However, you must write a letter with acknowledgment of receipt in which you indicate the reasons for your dispute.
However, proving that you were not at the scene of the offense with your vehicle will not be enough to end your problems. Indeed, once your license plate has been duplicated you are exposed to receiving letters from ANTAI every four mornings. It is therefore recommended to first file a complaint at the police station, which can help catch the criminals. Then, it is necessary to make a request to obtain a new registration plate from the website of the National Agency for Secure Titles (ANTS) – it is no longer possible to do this directly at the prefecture or sub-prefecture – as well. than a new registration document. Your car will then have a completely new identity and you will no longer receive unjustified fines.
As for the authors of “doublette”, the name given to this increasingly widespread scam, they risk very big if they are arrested. The use of false registration plates is in fact punishable in France by a sentence of 5 years in prison, a fine of 3,750 euros, a withdrawal of six points, a suspension of the driving license of three years and the definitive confiscation of the vehicle.