April 25 (UPI) — A British man who paid more than $26,000 to replace his stolen car later discovered he had unknowing bought his own vehicle back.
Ewan Valentine, 36, from Solihull, England, said he discovered Feb. 28 that his black 2016 Honda Civic Type-R had been stolen from its overnight parking space.
Valentine said he was distraught about the loss and hoped to replace the car with a nearly-identical vehicle.
“Sure enough, I found one for sale. Same color, same year, same custom exhaust system,” he wrote on social media.
The license plates and VIN were different from his stolen vehicle, so he didn’t think too much about the similarities until he had already paid more than $26,000 for the replacement ride.
“I started to notice some odd things when I got it home. I noticed a tent peg and some Christmas tree pines in the boot. I noticed the locking wheel nut was in a Tesco sandwich bag. I noticed some wrappers in the central storage section. All oddly similar to my stolen car,” he wrote.
Valentine decided to check the car’s on-board GPS and discovered it had previously been to his house, his parents’ house and even his partners’ parents’ house.
“A part of me felt sort of triumphant for a moment until I realized, actually, no, this isn’t some heroic moment; you didn’t go and get your car back; you’ve actually done something a bit stupid,” Valentine told the BBC.
He took the vehicle to a Honda dealership, where technicians confirmed the VIN was a fake and the car was indeed the one that had been stolen from Valentine.
“The first Honda technician, he pulled the physical key out, puts it straight in the door and unlocks it and he’s like, ‘Yes, it’s your car,'” Valentine said.
Valentine said he does not believe the garage that sold him the car knew it was stolen.
“The police and the Honda garage all said this was one of the best clone jobs they’d ever seen, so if it wasn’t for these little artifacts, no one would have ever known,” he said.
The car is currently being investigated by police for forensic evidence and will then be turned over to Valentine’s insurance company.
“The police are now handing the car over to my insurance company, who will either get it road legal again and in a position that it can be insured on my original policy again or pay out for the car if that costs more than the car,” he told Birmingham Live.
