Amazon banning number plates as illegal supply found

Online retailer Amazon is banning the sale of car number plates from its platform, after an investigation found they were being illegally supplied.

According to an investigation by BBC London, seven companies on Amazon’s online platform were selling number plates without checking customers’ documents and establishing their legal entitlement to the plate.

In the UK, it is illegal for companies to supply number plates without physically seeing documents such as a driving licence or a V5 (logbook) document.

Amazon said all seven products from the companies the BBC investigated had been removed, and that sales of all number plates would cease apart from novelty plates.

Last year the BBC revealed a 64 per cent increase over three years in the number of fines cancelled due to car cloning incidents in London.