How to check a car before you buy: we use databases and logic available on the Internet

According to the analytical agency "AUTOSTAT", according to the results of October 2017, the volume of the market of used cars in Russia amounted to 473 thousand units, and according to the results of 10 months of 2017 - about 4.4 million units, which is 1.5% more, than a year ago.

Source: www.autostat.ru/press-releases/32145
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It is not a secret to anyone that, in this profitable area, besides bona fide sellers, muddy comrades and sometimes notorious scammers come across. The love of our fellow citizens for freebies and the legal peculiarities of owning vehicles leave many opportunities for those who want to unfairly receive the gold of a family stock of ordinary Russian citizens.

However, thanks to some efforts of state bodies and other organizations, we have the opportunity to fairly quickly collect interesting information about specific cars from open sources on the Internet. How to do it quickly and for free , we will try to tell in this article.

To collect all the available information about the vehicle, you need to know its vin-number. VIN or Vehicle Identification Number (English Vehicle identification number) - a unique vehicle code consisting of 17 characters. The code provides information on the manufacturer and characteristics of the vehicle, and the year of manufacture. The code structure is based on ISO 3779-1983 and ISO 3780 standards. Identification numbers are applied on all-in-one components of the body or chassis and on specially made license plates (nameplates).

A few exceptions to the rules for VIN

A car may have two different VINs.

It is important that this exception only confirms the existence of the rule: on all the places where the vehicle's VIN is applied, it should be the same and you should check them all.

Places of application from car manufacturers differ, for example, the VIN under the windshield may be missing or vice versa, it will be additionally knocked out in the trunk. Fortunately, for almost every popular car model there is its own online forum for owners, where everyone can find out all the necessary information.


Several places where a manufacturer can specify a VIN

The car may not have a VIN

From July 10, 2017, the traffic police will register cars with damaged VIN numbers in a new way. From now on, it is allowed to register cars “with changed markings of vehicles and numbering units as a result of natural wear, corrosion, repair or returned to owners or owners after theft, subject to their identification”. Now, according to the police’s explanations, in order to legitimize the disappeared (for example, due to rust) number, the car owner will have to pass the vehicle identification test. And on the basis of the conclusion received, as well as the decision to refuse to initiate a criminal case, the traffic police makes a note in the registration data that the VIN number of the car has been lost.

The procedure is long. At the market price, such a car will be significantly more difficult to sell. The risk can be justified for the buyer with a big discount given to him, but it can still turn into serious problems.

Since due to the changes made to the order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia of November 24, 2008 N 1001 “On the procedure for registration of vehicles” by the order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation of August 7, 2013 N 605, the change of the owner of the car became possible without deregistration. The buyer of a used car after having bought the car and gave the money must independently register the vehicle in connection with the change of ownership.

This document abolishes the notion of “deregistration” and replaces it with “change of registration data”. In some cases, such a simplification of the procedure leads to the fact that the buyer is left without money and with a car that he cannot register for himself in the prescribed manner or can, but with significant losses of money and time.

That is why it is recommended to check the car before buying. How to do this with the help of open data via the Internet, we describe below.

We learn VIN by photo

On popular services for placing ads on the sale of cars, many sellers leave the license plates of cars in the photos open. This allows you to get to know the car’s vin for free without spending time on correspondence with the seller.

1 way

In this case, the service will help to view information about the OSAGO contract on the website of the Russian Union of Motor Insurers.

RSA is a non-profit corporate organization that is an all-Russian professional association based on the principle of compulsory membership of insurers who carry out compulsory insurance of civil liability of vehicle owners, and operating in order to ensure their interaction, the formation and control of the implementation of professional rules in the implementation of compulsory insurance, and in order to ensure the technical inspection of vehicles dstv in accordance with the Russian legislation.

Simple algorithm of actions:

1. We find interesting announcements with open registration numbers in the photo on the advertisement sites.
2. Follow the link dkbm-web.autoins.ru/dkbm-web-1.0/policy.htm to view information about the contract OSAGO vehicle.
3. Enter the characters from the State license plate of the vehicle and select the date on which information is required OSTPL.
   
   It may turn out that the car being sold expires several months ago. Therefore, if you see the phrase
   
   "Information about the contract OSAGO with the specified details are not found, but this is not grounds for refusing to receive payment" ,
   
   just pick a date in the past. Sometimes you need to go back in the calendar for several months or even years. In such cases, the buyer should already have a question about the reason for not using the car, or drawing conclusions about the risk appetite of the current owner of the vehicle.
   
   
   
   In our case, the car got "potentially problematic", and we only found a valid policy in 2015. As a result, we received a series and number of the contract OSAGO. Some of the numbers are erased only in order not to attract undue attention to specific cars, in practice, these data are open.
   
   
   
4. Now, knowing the series and number of the insurance contract, follow the link dkbm-web.autoins.ru/dkbm-web-1.0/osagovehicle.htm to view information about the vehicle, and more specifically, to learn vin.
   
   Fill out the form:
   
   
   At the output we get the vehicle identification number (VIN) we need, which will allow us to collect most of the necessary information.
   
   
   

2 way

A faster way is to get a VIN from a vehicle inspection service (diagnostic card) using the official EAISTO traffic police eaisto.info

It was created to verify the legitimacy of the diagnostic card in the service by scoring the data entered in the EAISTO database on the validation form field (it is enough to enter the state number). That is, such a procedure is useful even for those who are not going to sell a car to check if they have issued a vehicle inspection check.

What came to the traffic police

June 26, 2016 to the 80th anniversary of the traffic police launched an updated version of the service check vehicles. From now on, everyone can check the history of the car that interested them on the traffic police website.

www.gibdd.ru/check/auto

On the website of the State Traffic Inspectorate, it is enough to enter the vehicle's VIN and it will be possible to find out about all traffic accidents involving him, about finding a particular car in the search and about restrictions on its registration, as well as the history of the registration record of the car.

The service will not only display information about the participation of the car in an accident, but also schematically show information about the most significant mechanical damage received in them. No personal data about the owner or owner of the car is not published.



Unfortunately, at times the server becomes unavailable, for example, this publication was postponed precisely because of a failure in its work, which lasted almost a day. It may be worth the agency to consider transferring this service to a secure cloud based on the IaaS platform , certified for information security requirements and using security tools certified by the FSTEC and the FSB. This allows you to place the State Information Systems (GIS), which are subject to the highest requirements for the protection of information. At the same time, the provider will guarantee the level of service availability - usually from 99.95% per month.



We checked a few ads selected randomly. That is what was learned, without leaving home and not wasting time on the road.

Regularity №1. The “broken / not broken” characteristic is filled in by sellers in accordance with the current state

As a rule, the seller will indicate that the car is broken only if the car is sold in a badly damaged condition and repairs are required for its operation. If there was a weak collision or even a serious accident, but the car was restored, in the seller’s opinion, it was not broken.

To understand whether to go to inspect the car and where to look especially carefully, the list on the site gibdd.ru will help check for participation in road accidents.



At the same time you need to know about the features:

1. There is information only about accidents that have occurred since the beginning of 2015.
2. Accidents must be registered in the Automated Information and Control System of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate (AIUS GIBDD) (in practice this means that the accident was reported to the traffic police).

Read more nbiservice.com/images/Pictures-Preza/AIUS_GIBDD/__.pdf

Because of these features, a database check is a necessary but insufficient measure to ensure the success of buying a used car.

Law number 2. Urgent sale - a sign of danger

For example, consider one of the ads with an emphasis on "urgency."



It is logical to use the service to obtain information about the location of the vehicle in the pledge. You can check the vehicle for any charge by using the service of the Federal Notary Chamber www.reestr-zalogov.ru/state/index#



Recognizing the VIN by the number from the registration plate using the services described earlier, we enter it in order to receive information in the registry of the PNP.



The car turns out to be a pledge of property. Not asserting anything about a particular case, this situation can have two ways of development:

1. The seller will not be available for contact after selling the car to a naive buyer. At the same time, the car will remain burdened with a pledge, which means it will not be possible to register it for yourself without repaying the debt.
2. The seller will repay the debt with money received from the buyer.

About what option is most likely, everyone can decide on the basis of their own experience, intuition and logic. In addition to secured cars, the purchase of a car sold by proxy and a car with the discontinued registration are potentially dangerous.

After you find out the seller’s full name, you can verify the owner in court cases using the Federal Bailiff Service— fssprus.ru/iss/ip

The FSSP service shows only cases in which judicial proceedings are already underway.
Statements of urgency and some nervousness of the seller must be a danger signal to the buyer. On the real estate market there are cases when the apartment of the seller who wanted to close the deal as quickly as possible, on the day of payment was in arrest. At the same time, during the preliminary check, before exiting the deal, everything “was clean” on the same bases.

Considering the cost of some cars that is comparable to the price of apartments, we recommend that you make repeated and most thorough checks before transferring payment.



Additional services for checking with duplicate or non-critical information:

• Check the history of cars only in Moscow and Moscow Region - avtokod.mos.ru
• Checking the car for use as a taxi MosReg - uslugi.mosreg.ru/transport/taxi
• Information on customs clearance of cars imported into the territory of the Customs Union member states - www.customsonline.ru/rastamoghka.html
• Search for photos of the car, recorded by other people avto-nomer.ru and migalki.net (not a single photo from 10 verified cars was found).
• There are cases when services for checking vehicles collected information, for example, information about other ads with this phone number for selling personal belongings on specialized websites, and were blocked by a court decision. Therefore, when creating such databases, it is important to balance the interests of users and the rights of citizens, including privacy, personal and family secrets.

Do I need paid services?

Service check on the site gibdd.ru naturally free. An honest seller will not hide from you information about the vin number, so you can get all the above information without financial costs.

The motivation of the sellers, closing the number of the registration plate of the car, basically comes down to repeating this action, following the example of others. Initially, basically, it was done by car dealers and so-called “second-hand dealers”. Seeing that the signs are closed for many, some car owners do the same. But many still do not do it, and it is the majority of buyers who dream of purchasing a car from a real owner. Therefore, the described method of obtaining a vin using the registration number on the photo is useful and time saving.

Not all people are experienced Internet users and are able to easily navigate through the links described above in order to obtain the desired information. To solve this problem, paid services were created that form combined click reports. We checked only one report of such a service, and unfortunately, it so coincided that an “inaccuracy” was found in the report.

According to the service, the third owner is the last one at the moment and no change of owner has occurred. The same request on the website of the State Automobile Inspectorate gives more complete information and allows you to understand that the owner removed the car from the register more than six months ago and now the car is in fact a real estate. The seller in communication explained this fact by the fact that he bought a car and did not register it. Did he really ride an unregistered car? Could it be that the vehicle has been under repair for a long time due to an unreported accident? You can guess only when viewed.

The minimum problems for the buyer are that after the 10-day period expires, the owner of an unregistered car will be brought to administrative responsibility - a fine of 1,500-2,000 rubles for citizens. Someone will have to pay this fine, as well as possibly other fines received while the car was not registered.

More serious problems may arise if registration is terminated due to the loss of the vehicle after an accident or for another reason: after hijacking a car, when a car is scrapped, and so on.

Somehow to copy the report or its part with the purpose to provide to third parties, that is, for example, Habr's readers, we can not under the terms of the user agreement with the service. Without evidence, it would be wrong to call this service, however, it is worth noting that such an error may lead the buyer to a dangerous transaction, and the use of a paid service may be perceived as a sufficient measure of due diligence. The buyer will deal with losses independently, since under the terms of the same agreement, the service is not liable for outdated or incomplete information. Although it is rather a mistake in the logic of the report, as the data in our case would be outdated six months ago.

Conclusion

Funds spent on buying a used car, can be the result of savings of several years. Obviously, buying a car with it is a responsible deed. It requires deliberate decisions taken on the basis of facts obtained from reliable sources with an understanding of their specifics, and not only based on the words of the seller. Well, if this article will help someone not to go to inspect the car in the dark because of the fact that the seller urgently needs money and he wants to sell an unbeaten garage storage car at half the price.

The task of the IT industry is to facilitate this process for ordinary citizens by automating and increasing the availability of data, but without violating a person’s rights and freedoms when processing his personal data.

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