Car valuation sites have long been a scourge for Swedish consumers.

From time to time, new sites appear where those who visit the websites do not understand that the services cost thousands of kronor.

Many people also experience the surprising invoices that are sent out as threatening and frightening.

- It will be a cat and rat game, because we have to act against each individual company.

It is not illegal to run a car appraisal site, but it must be clear whether the service costs money or not.

And there we see big problems, said Charlotte Söderlund, lawyer at the Swedish Consumer Agency, earlier this year.

In early 2021, when SVT reviewed one of the pages, an answer came from an unknown person:

Shortly afterwards, the site shut down, but the same man who had started it would soon start many more.

Thousands have reported the valuation sites to the Swedish Consumer Agency as they feel cheated when they subsequently received an invoice of SEK 2,000.

Most notified company

Based on SVT's own survey of several years of different car valuation sites, together with documentation from the Swedish Consumer Agency and sources with insight, we can now reveal that at least nine of the most registered websites have links to one and the same man.

The man has previously been sentenced to prison for, among other things, a serious tax crime and was then banned from running a business for several years.

Among other things, he can be linked to the Latvian company Capitalink SIA, which is the company that has received by far the most notifications and complaints to the Swedish Consumer Agency so far this year. 

“Do not understand the price information”

As the company is not registered in Sweden, the Swedish Consumer Agency has contacted the Latvian consumer authority to pursue the matter further.

According to Charlotte Söderlund, the large number of reports is a clear sign that something is not right.

- Marketing must be assessed on the basis of how an average consumer perceives the marketing in question.

If there is a large number of reports of the same thing, it indicates that the average consumer does not actually perceive the price information clearly enough, says Charlotte Söderlund.

The bank can stop the payment

Many of those who feel cheated choose to contest the claims and some who have been affected have reported the sites to the police.

Others choose to pay and in some cases the customers' banks have gone in and stopped the transactions to the company.

- It can happen, for example, if we suspect or have received reports that there is a risk of fraud, or that there is a risk that the business or business model is dishonest, SEB's press manager told SVT earlier this spring.

SVT has searched for the man behind the sites who did not respond.

In the video below, you can follow SVT's team to Latvia.

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Thousands feel cheated: "It is very possible".

See the answers that SVT's reporters get in Latvia.

Photo: SVT