How not to run into scammers when buying a car abroad

You can buy a car from a for­eign man­u­fac­tur­er and import it into Rus­sia not only on your own, but also through an inter­me­di­ary com­pa­ny. Auto expert Denis Ere­menko in a con­ver­sa­tion with 5‑tv.ru explained how to rec­og­nize a scam­mer, what doc­u­ments are required for a for­eign car and what to do if a faulty vehi­cle was deliv­ered to you.

Denis Ere­menko
Expert in car selec­tion, on the mar­ket since 2007

How not to run into scammers

Against the back­ground of the hype, scam­mers appear who, by telling tales of “frozen” car prices, can take your mon­ey. There­fore, it is nec­es­sary to care­ful­ly approach this issue. You can check the com­pa­ny on sev­er­al grounds:

• TIN num­ber. On the web­site of the tax ser­vice, you can see the date of reg­is­tra­tion of the com­pa­ny, on paid ser­vices — its turnover.
• Date of reg­is­tra­tion of the domain name. Most com­pa­nies have a web­site and can be checked by reg­is­tra­tion date. If the com­pa­ny was reg­is­tered yes­ter­day or six months ago, it is worth mak­ing sure of the puri­ty of inten­tions before con­clud­ing a deal.
• Media space: VK, YouTube, oth­er social net­works. This is an indi­rect ver­i­fi­ca­tion method, but scam­mers active­ly use them.
• Ask friends and acquain­tances what they have heard about this com­pa­ny.

What documents to do upon arrival

First of all, an elec­tron­ic PTS is required for a car from abroad (vehi­cle pass­port — Ed.). First you need to buy GLONASS equip­ment and get a vehi­cle safe­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion — this is a for­mal pro­ce­dure. Almost any car cer­ti­fi­ca­tion can be obtained with­out prob­lems.

“To get an elec­tron­ic PTS, you must def­i­nite­ly buy ERA-GLONASS equip­ment. You must have a device num­ber, with­out which you will not receive an elec­tron­ic vehi­cle pass­port”, — said the auto expert.

As with a con­ven­tion­al car that was import­ed and sold by an offi­cial deal­er, it is nec­es­sary to reg­is­ter the car with the MREO.

“Although, draw­ing an anal­o­gy with new cars, instal­la­tion of GLONASS equip­ment on domes­tic cars is not required. And there are a num­ber of regions, for exam­ple, the Far East, where the instal­la­tion of this equip­ment has been can­celled. The Moscow region, unfor­tu­nate­ly, is deprived of this. If the car is more than four years old, then you must first pass a tech­ni­cal inspec­tion. We made an OSAGO pol­i­cy, signed up, drove off, reg­is­tered the car, ”- clar­i­fies Denis Ere­menko.

How to check the car

If you choose a car from those already brought, which are in stock, you can sim­ply check the car. Before buy­ing an import­ed vehi­cle, you can test it, clar­i­fy all the details, and also check the con­di­tion live. If dur­ing the check you have doubts about the prop­er qual­i­ty of the car, con­sult a pro­fes­sion­al about buy­ing.

For exam­ple:

• Con­tact a friend­ly car ser­vice. Tech­ni­cians will estab­lish the con­di­tion of the engine, motor, gear­box, elec­tron­ics.
• Con­tact the car selec­tion ser­vice, where the spe­cial­ist is engaged in on-site diag­nos­tics and issues a con­clu­sion.

If the machine is faulty…

The expert replies that if a tech­ni­cal mal­func­tion is detect­ed, then the con­sumer pro­tec­tion law will apply. But take care of this risk should be in advance.

“With a high prob­a­bil­i­ty, the break­down will not be due to the fact that some­one want­ed to deceive you, but it just hap­pened. Any­thing can break on a used car. Some­times these cars are in the park­ing lot and break down. Com­fort access stops work­ing, doors do not open, — auto expert warned.

When buy­ing, you must enter in the con­tract of sale the full cost of the car. In car selec­tion ser­vices, they warn that there are no guar­an­tees for a used car. In the event that the mal­func­tion can be fixed in a car repair shop for lit­tle mon­ey, it is more expe­di­ent to imme­di­ate­ly con­tact an intel­li­gent mas­ter.

If the cost of the costs is too high, you can ter­mi­nate the con­tract of sale and return the mon­ey in a pre-tri­al order.

If the per­son refus­es, the com­plaint is con­sid­ered in court. The amount of recov­ery is equal to the amount of the car spec­i­fied in the con­tract. But remem­ber: by pur­chas­ing a used car, you agree to the pos­si­ble dam­age that may occur.

How to choose a car repair shop

When choos­ing a work­shop, pro­ceed from the nature of the dam­age. There are ser­vices that car­ry out sched­uled main­te­nance, and ser­vices that can make com­plex repairs. If you just need to change the oil or change the inte­ri­or and fil­ter, any work­shop can han­dle it. There are no dif­fi­cul­ties.

“Mas­ters can do this both in a KIA car and in a Mer­cedes car at the same time — they snap off a cou­ple of fas­ten­ers, pull out the fil­ter, and put it back in. Drained oil, filled with oil. There are no dif­fi­cul­ties.” says Ere­menko.

If you have some kind of com­plex spe­cif­ic break­down on a Ger­man car, then, with a high prob­a­bil­i­ty, peo­ple who change oil and pads will not help you. And in this case, con­tact a nar­row-pro­file ser­vice, where they only deal with repairs and main­te­nance of a cer­tain brand.

If sud­den­ly you decide to get involved in this whole adven­ture, be vig­i­lant, think with your head, the auto expert advis­es. Don’t lose your mind at the sight of sweet, “frozen” prices. Don’t let your­self be fooled.

Where to get spare parts for an imported car

In the cur­rent eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion, prices in Rus­sia for com­po­nents fluc­tu­ate great­ly.

“Here I would divide all the spare parts into “bod­ies” and into ordi­nary “lock­smiths”. And you need to under­stand that, for exam­ple, accord­ing to our specifics, we car­ry dif­fer­ent brands and mod­els that were not offi­cial­ly sold on our mar­ket, ” explained auto­ex­pert.

Denis Ere­menko explains that there have been prob­lems with body parts before. But now it is even more dif­fi­cult and expen­sive to bring them. To date, all sup­ply chains have been restored, but due to the fact that not every­one knows how to do this, sup­ply com­pa­nies are spec­u­lat­ing. They have big spreads, big com­mis­sions.

“In my opin­ion, the real cost of spare parts, tak­ing into account the cur­rent exchange rate, should be much low­er. She’s kind of over­priced.” con­clud­ed the auto expert.

With lock­smith spare parts, things are a lit­tle sim­pler — there are non-orig­i­nal ana­logues, many of which are pro­duced in Rus­sia, Korea, and neigh­bor­ing coun­tries that are not under sanc­tions, and with which, in prin­ci­ple, logis­tics was not inter­rupt­ed.