There's a guy with a van with no plates for a year out on the street

Many years ago, in London, friend of mine reported his car stolen after it was taken from where he always parked it on the street near his home (there was no offstreet parking in that part of the city). A day later, he remembered he couldn't get to his usual parking space and so had parked it in a nearby street. He went back to the police station to tell them all was well.

Three months later, in another part of the country, he was pulled over for driving a stolen car. It took some time for that police force to confirm that indeed it was his car, but it still appeared on the list of stolen vehicles issued by the Metropolitan Police. They removed it from the list, but he'd been regularly parking outside the police station he had reported it to during those three months. Gives you confidence, isn't it?