Odometer Fraud: How to Spot a Clocked Car
Odometer rollback is the most common fraud in used vehicle imports. Here's how VINsight detects it.
Technical Team20 February 20265 min read
Odometer fraud (clocking) involves rolling back a vehicle's mileage to increase its resale value.
How We Detect It
VINsight builds an odometer timeline from official inspection records:
- **UK MOT tests**: Record mileage at every annual MOT test
- **NZ WoF inspections**: Record mileage at every Warrant of Fitness
- **Japanese auction records**: Record mileage at each auction sale
If a later reading is LOWER than an earlier reading, we flag it as a rollback.
Red Flags
- Unusually low mileage for the vehicle's age
- Mileage decreases between inspection dates
- Gaps in the inspection timeline
- Service stickers that don't match the dashboard reading