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CARJAM Blog

How does CarJam provide free Basic reports?

01-Jul-2013 FAQ

The short version:

1. Where a vehicle is not already in our cache (free data) registered users can use  three free Basic reports per month which will pull current data from the Motor Vehicle Register, at Carjam’s expense.
2. Where a vehicle is already in the cache and the WOF and rego are still current, we display the expiry dates. No update needed by User.
3. Where a vehicle is already in our cache and the WOF and rego are expired, we no longer show any dates, as this was confusing many users. In those instances, a User will now have to purchase a report at their own expense to access up to date information from the Motor Vehicle Register. These changes have become necessary as Carjam is currently paying for the “free” reports and is no longer able to absorb that cost in delivering millions of reports per month.
4.Users can choose and allocate a certain number of vehicle plates as ‘favourites’. Carjam will then pay for these select plates to be regularly updated so the users will no longer have to ‘update’ them manually and the user will be sent alerts to remind you that a WOF, rego or COF is nearing expiry.

The longer wordy version:

In December 2010 the New Zealand Transport Agency (“NZTA”) began imposing a fee of 16c for queries from CarJam to the Motor Vehicle Register (“MVR”) for Basic vehicle information like WOF, COF, rego and basic vehicle details  – previously these queries had been free allowing CarJam to provide unlimited free basic reports to the public.

To provide the maximum amount of free data to the public despite these government charges CarJam puts all the queries we do into a cache of data which we can provide at no cost. Its like recycling old reports.

We provide 3 free basic reports per month to registered users of CarJam and these free basic reports can be used to look up any plate which is not currently in the cache of previous queries.

Of course some of the data in these cached reports like WOF, rego, license gets stale and needs to be refreshed. Refreshing these stale reports requires a registered user to purchase a full report – we use the money paid for these reports to fund the hundreds of thousands of free reports we provide to users – those “free” reports actually cost 16c as mentioned above.

Alternatively you can add a plate as a “favourite” from My CarJam and it will be maintained using overnight lookups which are much cheaper.

 

17 responses to “How does CarJam provide free Basic reports?”

  1. fb.100004487763788 says:
    July 6, 2013 at 12:21 pm

    Very disappointed at not being told that a Visa Debt Card from my Bank could not be used to purchase information about a Car I wanted to buy.
    When I signed up with you and allowed you to use my Facebook to gather information and it was written that I would receive ‘Free’ Car Reports.
    I haven’t had any ‘Free’ reports I asked for nor have I been able to use my Bank Visa Debit Card.

    Reply
    • Anton says:
      July 6, 2013 at 5:44 pm

      You get 5 extra free basic reports. I have just checked your registration and you have 8 now which is 5 more than original 3. As for the payment problems we are pretty sure you can use your Visa Debit Card.

      Reply
    • Anton says:
      July 6, 2013 at 5:47 pm

      Just checked and your bank returns “DO NOT HONOUR” error. Please contact your bank for the explanation. Thanks.

      Reply
  2. Bruce griffin says:
    November 5, 2013 at 8:13 am

    hi how do i go about getting the free report on the kia at hamilton turners coming up this week for auction. when i click on your “get free report” it says something about the url not working??

    Reply
  3. lxa says:
    February 2, 2014 at 1:14 pm

    how do i update a cached free report from years ago?

    Reply
    • KatiePie says:
      February 3, 2014 at 1:16 pm

      Just enter the plate as per usual in our search bar and then follow prompts for payment. This new report will then also update the cache data.

      Reply
  4. Rodeoraptor660 says:
    July 1, 2014 at 6:10 pm

    Hi I’m trying to look up CDJ864 and use one of my free basic report and it won’t work it only shows i have 3 available and it should show at least 6 as i brought a report plus the 3 a month and any how i don’t have them and i can’t get a basic report what do i do can you sort this problem out for me

    Reply
  5. tuinz says:
    July 20, 2014 at 11:48 am

    Hrm, was under the impression that there was a free report. All I got was the original page before signup that said the car is legal and wasn’t wanted by the authorities. On clicking to go to the free report I had to sign up for one of two paid reports. This doesn’t seem like fair advertising to me.

    Reply
    • Paul says:
      July 20, 2014 at 1:36 pm

      The free reports are delivered as described in the post above – sorry for any confusion there is certainly no intention to deceive, we work hard to provide free info where we can even though we have to pay the government for it.

      Reply
  6. anwar77 says:
    November 3, 2014 at 11:45 am

    How do i get a free basic report? There is no link for this

    Reply
  7. Viola says:
    January 4, 2015 at 5:43 pm

    Just got a report on Nissan rego ST4887 you say the WOF expired 113 years ago in 1901. Yea right.

    Reply

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