Woman reclaims personalised plates after they turn up on stranger's car

A Waikato woman has finally reclaimed personalised plates she's owned for three decades after she found them registered to a stranger's car.

Amanda* tried multiple avenues to resolve the situation during a frustrating battle lasting eight months.

She purchased the plates in February 1996 and removed them from her car about a decade ago, hanging them on her garage wall where they had remained ever since.

Then, in November last year, she decided she might part with the plates.

"I thought 'maybe I'll sell them. My kids don't want them on their car, and I've outgrown them'." The plates carry a variation of a common word, which 1News has agreed not to publish.

But when Amanda carried out a routine online search, she was shocked to find them registered to someone else's vehicle.

"I've never owned a blue Mazda," she said.

The company that issues personalised plates, Licensys, confirmed in writing that only one set of plates had been made and that they were still registered to her.

Amanda was then directed to NZTA. What followed was months of emails, legal consultations and eventually a certification officer sent to physically locate the Mazda at the address where it was registered.

The search was unsuccessful after several visits.

In a statement to 1News, NZTA said it had reviewed transaction records and system logs, confirmed with Licensys that Amanda remained the entitlement holder and made repeated attempts to contact the person responsible for the other vehicle.

It also considered using its powers under section 265 of the Land Transport Act to require the plates be surrendered, and deployed a certification officer to locate and inspect the vehicle.

However, without physically verifying the plates, NZTA said it did not have sufficient evidence to lawfully compel their surrender.

After Amanda filed a 105 report, police told her the matter was civil and didn't meet the threshold for criminal investigation.

To pursue the matter through the Disputes Tribunal — the pathway police suggested — she would need to identify the Mazda's owner. NZTA held those details but would not share them under privacy law.

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Amanda said she felt ignored by the authorities.

"How can you sit there and knowingly allow a vehicle to be registered with plates that aren't legitimate — and tell me it's not your problem when you are in charge of licensing vehicles?

"Are you telling me I could walk in with a cardboard cutout of a random plate, register my vehicle, and you're not going to bat an eyelid?"

NZTA said the case highlighted the distinction between entitlement to a personalised plate and how a plate combination is recorded on the Motor Vehicle Register.

While Amanda remained the recorded entitlement holder for the plate, NZTA said entitlement was not verified when personalised plates were attached to a vehicle.

Instead, an agent only needs to see the plates and complete the paperwork for the Motor Vehicle Register to be updated.

"There is no requirement to be the entitlement holder to display a personalised plate on a vehicle," a spokesperson told 1News.

The agency said it found no evidence the situation resulted from a system or agent error and had been unable to determine how the plate came to be associated with another vehicle.

Amanda visited her local VTNZ in person, hoping the system might correct itself if she tried to re-register the plates directly, but they could not help.

"I wanted to explore every avenue possible," she said.

But the visit prompted a fresh exchange that produced the first sign of movement.

After lodging a report with police and providing NZTA with the reference number, the agency confirmed it would share its full file with officers and grant them permission to act against the other party.

It proved to be the breakthrough. NZTA wrote a letter to police requesting they act on the agency's behalf and a phone call from officers to the person displaying the plates was enough to convince them to have them removed.

Amanda said the ordeal had exposed a gap in how personalised plates are protected in New Zealand.

"It's crazy that this took eight months to sort. Even crazier that it was allowed to happen in the first place," she said.

"The lesson from all of this is that your personalised plates are not secure unless they are attached or registered to a vehicle."

NZTA said there was a formal transfer of entitlement process, administered by KiwiPlates, when personalised plates are sold, gifted or otherwise transferred. But, because people do not always complete that process, disputes over entitlement can arise.

The agency said it was taking steps to provide clearer and more consistent information about personalised plate processes so customers better understood their responsibilities and options.

* A pseudonym has been used to protect her identity.