Reviver RPlate Stolen

Introduction

I got a new car recently and somehow the sales person managed to pursuade me to purchase a digital license plate (RPlate) from Reviver. According to Reviver, if the RPlate was stolen, the user can report it as stolen and the RPlate will not be usable anymore. Because of this, I thought RPlates would not be a target for theft. However, I was completely wrong.

In this blog post, I would like to share my experience of having my RPlate stolen and my thoughts on why RPlates are still a target for theft.

Reviver RPlate Stolen

At 4 AM in the morning, I received an email from Reviver saying that “Your RPLATE has been Detached!” and “Please use the RPLATE app or web to authenticate plate attachment or report it as stolen.”.

When I read the email at 7 AM, I thought it might just be a false alarm. However, when I went to the parking lot to check the car, I found that the RPlate was indeed stolen and the original plate mounting base was damaged. It has only been used for three weeks since I purchased it, which is very crazy to me.

So I reported the RPlate as stolen in the Reviver app. According to the Reviver app, I will still have to report the stolen RPlate to local law enforcement and get a police report. I shall report the stolen RPlate as a theft of personal property theft instead of a theft of a license plate. This makes sense because Reviver can deactivate the RPlate remotely and not show any original vehicle information after the RPlate is reported as stolen. However, when the police officer came, probably because they are not quite familiar with the RPlate, they still wrote the police report as a theft of a license plate and asked me to get a new license plate of new numbers. The old numbers will be flagged as stolen in the system. I then asked how could I drive the car without a license plate. The police officer said I could drive the car with the police report. If I get pulled over, I could show the police officer the police report and explain the situation.

Because my license plate was still a temporary one, DMV could not process a new license plate for me. Instead I had to go to the dealership to get a new temporary license plate. The manager of the dealership said it’s the first time they encounter a temporary license plate being stolen. But when I asked for a new temporary license plate of new numbers, they said they could only give me a new temporary license plate of the same old numbers, because my permanent license plate is being processed by DMV and the temporary license plate number is associated with the VIN of the new car. So I ended up with a new temporary license plate of the same old numbers and saving the police report in the car in case I get pulled over in the future before I get the permanent license plate.

The Reviver customer service requested a copy of the police report and took one day to process the stolen RPlate case.

Reviver RPlate As A Target For Theft

Even if the stolen RPlate is useless for the thief, I think the RPlate will still be a target for theft for a long period of time, primarily because thieves do not know the stolen RPlate cannot be used. It’s just like a thief stealing or robbing an iPhone from Apple store. The stolen iPhone can never be activated. Yet there are still crazy people stealing or robbing iPhones from Apple stores.

Reviver came out around 2022 I think. However, I have only seen Reviver RPlate in the bay area once in the last two years. Because it’s not popular, people might think it looks fancy but have no idea of its “anti-theft” feature. So the RPlate is still a target for theft. Even if I got a new Reviver RPlate replacment, I am very afraid that my replaced RPlate will be stolen and cause me a lot of trouble again in the future.

Reviver RPlate Replacement

Replacing a Reviver RPlate would cost an additional \$200. If the Reviver RPlate got stolen 10 times, I would have to pay \$2,000 for replacement. I have been disappointed with Reviver RPlate and declined their “offer”.

So I ended up using the ordinary license plate as if I never purchased the Reviver RPlate. The Reviver RPlate is just the money down the drain.

Conclusions

In retrospect, I would have not purchased the Reviver RPlate if I knew it would be stolen, no matter how fancy and convenient it is for the user to get the vehicle registration renewed. Probably it’s only a good idea to use Revivier RPlate when Revivier RPlate become very famous and everyone starts to use it.