Remorseful thief returns number plate after Vic Deals Facebook post

A Wellington woman was "pleasantly surprised" to find her stolen number plate returned to her car after posting about the theft on Facebook.

Niamh Corr made a post on the Facebook page Vic Deals on New Year's Day after discovering someone had swiped her front number plate from her car overnight.

"[I] woke up on New Year's to go to work and realised my car looked weird and then noticed the plate missing, looked around the street and noticed two other cars had their plates gone too," Corr told the Herald.

"Someone had obviously go on a plate-stealing rampage."

Corr put her Facebook post up that night, "not really expecting it back".

Her post questioned whether anyone knew about plates being stolen on Roxburgh St, and said she just wanted the plate back, "no questions asked".

Corr woke up again the next morning to find the missing plate perched on her windscreen.

She believed the thief had seen her Facebook post and returned it, saying it was "too much of a coincidence for it to just randomly appear again".

"I was pleasantly surprised but it's still a pain in the arse as the screws are missing, so I'll have to get that fixed, but better than having to report it to the police."

She wasn't sure whether the other cars had their plates returned as they weren't parked on her street anymore.

"I've had people tamper with my car before after nights out but nothing serious, just moving the mirrors and windscreen wipers, stuff like that."

Corr put an update on her Facebook post with a photo of the returned plate.

"Thank you for bringing [it] back anonymous plate person," she wrote.