City Attorney worked with major online retailers to ban or restrict the sale of illegal license plate covers used to obscure license plates during sideshows and other crimes
SAN FRANCISCO (April 29, 2024) — City Attorney David Chiu announced today that four major online retailers have banned or significantly restricted the sales of illegal license plate covers used to evade law enforcement. This comes after the City Attorney’s Office sent cease and desist letters to Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Walmart to stop the sale of these products in California, where they are illegal to sell and use. Each online retailer worked collaboratively with the City Attorney’s Office, and banned or severely limited the sale and shipment of license plates covers on their platforms.
“The only reason someone would put a cover like this on their license plate is to get away with a crime,” said City Attorney Chiu. “We appreciate that these online retailers recognized the seriousness of this issue and worked with us to promote public safety. We will continue to monitor any illegal listings that may pop up in the future.”
“I’m pleased to see that these retailers have banned selling illegal license plate covers, which serve no other purpose than to enable criminal activity,” said San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott. “I want to thank City Attorney David Chiu for his partnership in this important work that will help us fight crime.”
Background
Law enforcement in San Francisco and across the country have encountered illegal license plate covers that obscure or cover a vehicle’s license plate. These covers make it difficult for law enforcement to identify vehicles and perpetrators involved in a variety of criminal activities, including sideshows, thefts, and robberies. The covers are also used to dodge pedestrian and traffic safety measures such as automated speed and red light cameras.
Illegal license plate covers come in several forms:
- Electronic plate covers that hide a license plate either through a mechanical drop down cover or curtain-like mechanism. A driver can initiate the cover mechanism from inside their vehicle using a remote control.
- Smoked, tinted, or warped covers that make it difficult to read the license plate number.
- Vinyl wrap kits that allow users to wrap their real license plates in a vinyl cover and change the license plate number displayed.
The California Vehicle Code makes it illegal to “sell a product or device that obscures, or is intended to obscure, the reading or recognition of a license plate by visual means, or by an electronic device.” Additionally, a license plate cover may not “obstruct or impair the recognition of the license plate information.”
In November 2023, the City Attorney’s Office sent cease and desist letters to four major online retailers—Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Walmart—where the illegal license plate covers were available for purchase. The City’s cease and desist letters called on these retailers to stop the sale of these illegal products to California residents.
Each of the online retailers responded in a timely manner and confirmed that they either removed listings for illegal license plate covers from their platforms entirely or implemented geographic filters to prevent these kinds of license plate covers from being sold to California residents.
- Amazon has banned listings for electronic license plate and vinyl wrap license plate covers from its North America platform entirely. Amazon has prohibited the sale and shipment of smoked and tinted license plate covers to California mailing addresses.
- Walmart has banned electronic license plate covers from its platform entirely, and has prohibited the sale and shipment of smoked and tinted license plate covers to California mailing addresses.
- Etsy has banned listings for electronic, vinyl wrap, and smoked license plate covers from its website, effectively prohibiting sales of these products nationwide.
- eBay has banned listings for electronic, vinyl wrap, and smoked license plate covers from its website, effectively prohibiting sales of these products nationwide.
“eBay’s collaboration with the San Francisco City Attorney’s office along with our dedicated proactive enforcement measures has resulted in the ongoing blocking and/or removal of a significant number of these products,” said Mike Carson, eBay’s Senior Director of Regulatory Policy. “We look forward to continued partnerships on this important issue.”
While rogue listings may still occasionally appear, the combined efforts have significantly narrowed, if not shut down, the online marketplace for illegal license plate covers across the country. The City Attorney’s Office will continue to monitor the online marketplaces to ensure illegal license plate covers are not being sold to California residents.
City Attorney Chiu sent the online retailers letters today, memorializing the successful collaborative efforts to remove illegal listings from the platforms and reiterating the ongoing monitoring process to prevent sales of illegal license plate covers. The letters can be found here.
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