After a long and hard work week, I was hoping to have a relaxing weekend. Planned on sleeping in a little on Saturday, play some video games, do some side project programming, maybe go and do some jiu jitsu and then on Sunday watch UFC 248 with friends. But after leaving the train on Friday evening and walking back to my vehicle, I noticed something was a little off. My front (and then as I walked to the back of my vehicle) and back vehicle licence plates had been stolen.
I stood there for a second, sighed and then was like “my relaxing weekend will now involve me filling in paper work in person and online, following up on my registration, getting new plates, etc”. As soon as I got home and was heating up my dinner I started to Google what I needed to do for stolen vehicle plates in Australia. The list of items was not long, but it would require me to go to a service centre, fill out more paper work, and do some more following up. The life of an adult 🙂
To begin with I needed to file a police report. Now for something like this I could either visit the specific website (which I did) and fill in the required information. Super simple and easy, but the only downside is that you will not get a Police Event Number straight away (did not know this at the time). You could also ring a specific hotline, or visit the local police station. If I knew that I would not get a Police Event Number then and there I would have just gone to my local station to file the report. This Police Event Number is important if you go to a Service NSW centre the next day to get new vehicle licence plates.
Woke up early on Saturday and went to the nearest Service NSW centre. Thankfully I was the first person in line and was quickly served. I needed to fill out some more paper work. As I was filling out the form I needed a Police Event Number. The number that you do not get straight away if you fill in the police report online. So now I had to either call the hotline or go to the local police station and provide the same information I entered last night. This time I just called up the hotline, answered all the necessary questions, and got a Police Event Number (yay). So for future reference and anyone in New South Wales, Australia I recommend that you either call the hotline or visit your local police station.
After getting this paper work sorted I got some new vehicle licence plates. They were not free though. I had to pay $47 to get new standard vehicle licence plates, even though they were stolen as the RMS will not take the hit for something like this. Thankfully the people at the Service NSW centre were super helpful (as was the lady I spoke to on the hotline I might add) and all the paper work to get my registration and new vehicle plates were sorted out. Now I just have to follow up with my vehicle insurer and make sure everything gets transfered over correctly.
I was also advised by the lady on the hotline that the police will be taking prints from my vehicle, asking a couple of more questions in person and also canvassing the area where the incident occurred as apparently there has been a string of vehicle licence plate thefts in that area. Hopefully these individuals (or individual) gets caught, have to pay back each and every single person they have affected, pay a substantial fine, and do some community service. Unfortunately I do not believe they will get caught 😦
Christopher Tom Kochovski 