Somebody Stole a Chunk of My License Plate (long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

As I’ve mentioned in a million threads, I work in a Kroger in a very bad part of my small, impoverished city.
I really hate the job, the company policies, most of the employees, and most of the customers but I try to keep it to myself. Ignore any nasty smells, pretend not to hear any snide remarks, try not to take it to heart when the drunks curse me out when I refuse to sell them more alcohol. Just smile, do my job well, and earn my minimum wage.

I was wrapping up another lousy night. It was just a short shift, but we were catching major shit by the enraged bottle-depositing customers because our machines were broken (a constant at the store. Everything in the store is a hand-me-down from others.) Didn’t get out on time since there were some last minute people still moseying down the aisles, ignoring the closing announcement.

It was a normal night. It would get better once I headed home to fall asleep and wake up for school in the morning. My boyfriend, just arriving for his night shift, bought me the prettiest bouquet of flowers we had! I couldn’t wait to get them into some water!

We walk outside. Something looks wrong as I approach the car, but what?
It’s not banged up. There doesn’t seem to be more key scratches than usual. I’ve made sure to park far away from the normal lot traffic to make sure this doesn’t happen anymore. With all the crime I know that is going on in this area, it makes walking across the unlit lot feel all the more scarier.
“What? No. Nooo…No way. What the ffffuuuuu?”

I don’t know about other places, but in Michigan you have to put a registration tab on your license plate. They last for one year and are renewed on the month of your birthday.
I regularly drive my father’s car, and his birthday was today. Brand new tab, good for a year.

Looking at the plate, I notice that it’s bent outward a bit. I drift to the corner and realize that the tab is missing. Not just that tab, but the whole piece of the plate itself. It looks like somebody hastily took garden shears to the license plate for the tab.

It took a bit for that to actually register with me. Hell to be honest, I don’t even know how much it costs, I only do it once a year. But without that tab, I can’t drive the car legally.
I pretty much lost it right there. Drove home, showed my dad (Happy Birthday, indeed!) and we called the police. Two and a half hours later and we’re still waiting on them. I know they’re not going to show. I should’ve gone straight to the station, but I’ve never done anything like this before. We can’t drive the car legally. The tag will only be $5 to replace but I don’t know how long it will take to get it and I have no idea what we will have to do with the old, damaged plate.

I’m so mad. I work so hard at such a miserable job in a dangerous part of town. I earn next to nothing, get verbally abused on a daily basis, and no matter how hard I work or how polite/quick/efficient I am, I will never be rewarded.
I’ve already accepted that fact long ago. I guess…I guess I thought that perhaps if I worked hard that I’d be safe, karmically. It’s a silly thought.
But then some scum has to sink to a new low, one that I never even thought of (and we have people stealing salsa by shoving it down their pants, or hiding meat in bottle return bags to sneak back out and resell for alcohol money here!)

I’m sorry for the rant. I just can’t believe that somebody could be so selfish and desperate to take shears to the car just to avoid the yearly payment of a registration tab. I’m really upset about primarily this, having to work at that place, and the runaround we were given by the police when we called them. This was way too mundane for the pit.

2

I would presume that, since you filed a police report, if you happened to get pulled over, the cop could look the plate up on his computer and verify that the car is, in fact, registered.

Joe

3

yeah, that’s common enough where as long as you have your reg certificate you shouldn’t be hassled too much. might get you pulled over, but not ticketed.

of course, this is all within reason, you have to go to SOS and get a new plate within a reasonable timeframe; if you’re still driving around with the clipped plate a month later you might be cited.

ETA: one thing I do to try to prevent it is go to a bigger auto parts store and get a fairly heavy-duty metal plate frame and a set of security mounting screws. makes you a less appealing target.

4

George, They finally came four hours after we called them. Took a look at the plate and said “Well, never seen that before. Must be a bummer, huh!” They didn’t even file a report, just gave us an incident number and left. I hope that’ll be good enough for now but we’re gonna take care of getting the plate replaced as soon as possible.

jz, that’s a really good idea. I’m going to talk to my dad about it when he gets home. I’ll definitely get one for my own car (it’s a little old bmw, I don’t drive it nearly as often) before I have to renew my tag in February.

I can understand why somebody would take it…Just stick it to the car (somehow) and you don’t have to worry about renewing the tag or going to the Secretary of State for a whole year. Hell, just avoiding a trip to the SoS would be worth the risk alone.

Woke up with a headache, still kind of flabbergasted about the whole night.

5

I used to live in Wisconsin, and they have the same stickers. At the time, my car was a 10-year-old 1990 Honda Prelude, and the stickers on the corner had built up such that they were noticeably raised above the plate itself. (I now know you’re supposed to remove the old one before putting the new one on. Apparently I, and the rest of my family, didn’t back then.)

I never really paid much attention to the reg stickers except for that once a year when you put them on - who does, really? I was home from college and my dad noticed that instead of 1998, the sticker read 1991 (or something). Either the stickers had had enough and just fallen off (doubtful) or someone had ripped 'em off (my favorite theory).

I just continued to drive it, and never got pulled over. If I had, the officer would’ve seen that the registration was current, as noted above. Probably a bad idea, sure, but we just didn’t bother to replace it. 'Course, it was just the stickers missing too; the plate was still fine.

I’ve heard that after putting the sticker on the car, you should use a razor blade or box cutter to cut diagonal score lines into it, to discourage theft. (That way the thief will get a bunch of useless scraps instead of a whole sticker. You’ll still be screwed, though. I don’t know if it’s much of a deterrent.) I wonder if the garden shear trick to take off the whole corner is in response to that. Still, it’d look really obvious to attach a whole stolen plate corner to your plate, I’d think. Anyway…

Sorry for your misfortunes - that really sucks. You have my sympathies.

6

That’s a good idea with the scoring, Snickers. I’ll have to do that with mine and his from now on.

I’m guessing the person did it with clippers to just take it and have a hasty getaway, as opposed to sitting there and risking somebody see it.
It sucks because it’s either park close to the store, and have the car get banged up to all hell even moreso, or park it further away and have stuff like this happen. :frowning:
It was to the side of the store, you couldn’t see it through our windows so I know nobody inside saw what happened. It’s just the spot where all the employees park but my car was the last one there. I could park waaaaaaay far out but like I mentioned, this is definitely a part of town where you don’t want to walk waaaaaaay far out by yourself at night.

Haha, to tell you the truth, I thought that you just stuck a new sticker on top of an old one, too! It wasn’t until I saw my dad out there recently scraping off the old one did I realize that you just don’t slap one atop another.

7

In Los Angeles, stealing the tag is fairly common, at least in poorer areas. And some of them will steal it even if you score it, and then piece it back on.

I’d get a big ol’ maglite to carry with you on the way to your car. Not necessarily for light, but because it’s good defense. (it’s scarier looking than a can of mace).

8

Happens a lot in Philadelphia. People try various things to discourage it (like heavy duty plate frames). At one point, the city tried stickers that went on the inside of the window, but it didn’t work too well.

9

My wife had her plate stolen at work. She phoned in a police report, and on the way home, was stopped by a patrolman. That quick report saved her from a ticket.

10

I am so sorry. :frowning:

11

In WA, they come scored. It can be a pita to put them on if you don’t follow the directions.
I imagine they cut the plate to take the sticker off at their leisure in a safe place, not to attach the metal piece to thier plate.

12

Just be careful with a license plate frame. I don’t know about Michigan, but in North Carolina, if your plate frame obscures the “North Carolina” at the bottom edge of the plate, you can get a ticket. Not that I’ve ever seen that enforced, but the law is new and on the books.

13

the ones I got just go around the perimeter of the plate, like this:

http://mycoplasticsonline.com/solid-license-plate-frames

except mine are metal.

14

In South Carolina, our stickers have the tag number printed on them, as opposed to some other registration number like they used to. This way, you can tell it’s a stolen sticker just by eyeballing it.

15

Are you me? :wink: Same thing happened, same state, same reason.

16

Thanks for all the advice and stories of those who relate, everyone.

My dad took the oh so fun trip to the SoS the next morning. Luckily, the tag was only $5 and the new plate was free (in Michigan a car only has one license plate, in the back. Are we the only state to have just one?)

It was just a frustrating experience, starting from the initial discovery to the slowness of the police.
I’m trying to look at other jobs. It’s tough since they work so well with my college schedule with me. I have an interview for a new job soon. I know I’ll still have to work at Kroger but if taking this second job means that I can work less hours in the Kroger area, I’ll gladly take it!
I recently heard that somebody got mugged *inside *the Kroger closest to where I live…This town is getting ridiculous.

17

I’m actually surprised most jurisdictions still use stickers since, as everyone says, when the plates are run during a traffic stop it’s easy to verify whether or not the vehicle is registered. It just doesn’t seem like a practical method nowadays. Québec got rid of the sticker system years ago (1992, according to wiki) and use cameras and computers to identify potentially stolen/unregistered vehicles.

18

If there’s an incident number, there’s a report, just not one that you had to sign. They probably entered it by computer, either on a laptop in their car or back at the station.

Sorry this happened to you.

19

Nope. Mississippi only does one license plate on the back. Plates are changed every 4 years with new stickers yearly. What you went through is just plain sad: I hope the thief can’t get the sticker off.

20

Because it’s easy for a cop to glance at a sticker, notice that it’s out of date, and thus have cause to stop you. Anything he might find after that is gravy.