Auctions
With more than £50M (source: Home Office) of equipment being stolen annually in the UK alone, criminals converting stolen equipment into cash are known to pass a proportion of it through equipment auctions.
While some auctions will check the equipment for its registered finance status, there is precious little effort being made by auctions to determine whether the equipment which they are selling has been registered as stolen. This means that it is relatively easy for criminals to use equipment auctions as a method of disposal for stolen equipment.
This is an opportunity which criminals have not been slow to miss, and also as one where the auctions are not providing as a good a service to their buying clients as they could be, while allowing themselves to be abused by criminals.
TER often checks used equipment auctions, and has, on many occasions, either identified and recovered stolen equipment from the auction ground itself, or has found that stolen equipment has passed through an auctioneer prior to TER identifying and recovering it. These operations are conducted in conjunction with the police and, if overtly conducted during a sale, can be damaging to the reputation of the auction and disruptive to the sale.
TER’s services for plant and equipment Auctioneers
Equipment identity inspections. In TER’s experience many of the items of equipment entered into auctions have had their original identity interfered with. As the quality of this ‘interference’ can be of a high standard, the equipment identity should be thoroughly investigated with a physical inspection by a TER inspector.
TER Check. TER will check the equipment identity data to ascertain the equipment’s registered ownership and finance status is. The TER Check provides significant added value to the auctioneer’s buying client, while enhancing the auction’s reputation for customer service. Additionally, the auctions will also be playing their part in reducing the opportunities for criminals to convert stolen property into cash, and to reduce the amount of stolen equipment in circulation.
TER Check Certificate. In order to evidence that the auction has made the required due diligence checks, TER provides TER Check Certificates as standard with every TER Check.
Equipment Registration. Auctioneers can register all equipment and new owners details with TER, for free provided that the TER Check and certificate service has been utilised.
Stolen equipment registration. In the event that an item of equipment is stolen from an auction site, the details can be registered with TER, for free.