Calamvale’s Casemore family in ‘cloned’ registration plate hell
A present of personalised plates to celebrate their apprentice mechanic son getting his L-plates has turned sour for a Brisbane family who say it has “ruined his reputation in the community”.
Southeast
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Personalised plates purchased for their son before he got his learner’s license have turned sour for a Brisbane family, after the plates were ‘cloned’ and used to rack up thousands in tolls and speeding fines.
Calamvale woman Lisa Casemore told the Southern Star the cloning of her son Dominic’s ‘DOM222’ plates was “ruining his reputation in the community as he is a car enthusiast, an apprentice mechanic and also owns a silver VW Golf,” the same colour and type of vehicle as that using the cloned plates.
“People know him by his car and personalised plates and now that they’ve been cloned it’s making him look bad to people he knows that aren’t aware of what has happened.”
Mrs Casemore said the family first became aware something was amiss when they received a whopping $1286 fine in the mail on September 1 for travelling more than 41 km/h over the speed limit.
They received another one on Friday for the same amount.
After receiving the first fine, Mrs Casemore checked her Linkt toll account and saw her son had supposedly racked up $300 in tolls.
“Our family has five cars which automatically top-up from different accounts and I only noticed because Dom’s account topped up on Friday, Saturday, and Monday morning,” she said.
“But Dom had been home most weekend.”
She also contacted Brisbane City Council to find out whether her son’s VW Golf had run up any parking tickets.
The answer: Loads, but council were unable to share an exact dollar figure.
Ms Casemore said she has “lost count” of how many posts she has put up in various Facebook groups seeking information on the impostor vehicle.
She has received several reports from community members, including pictures, but frustratingly police have not been able to apprehend the offender using the cloned plates.
“It’s embarrassing, Dom’s mates keep calling him up saying, ‘What are you thinking?’ Relatives have seen the car, they all think its him driving around like a maniac,” Ms Casemore said.
Mr Casemore has since removed his personalised plates until the offender is caught.
“He just wants to be able to use his plates again,” Mrs Casemore said.
Queensland Police confirmed investigations into the matter are continuing.
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