Conveyor belt of deception and fake calls: How Auto.ru and Avito block free ads and mimic buyers to extort money

Conveyor belt of deception and fake calls: How Auto.ru and Avito block free ads and mimic buyers to extort money

Popular online platforms Auto.ru and Avito, which originally started as honest classified ad services, have now fully transitioned into a phase of aggressive monetization bordering on fraud.

“Back when these platforms were still building their audience, everything was fair and users could sell their vehicles without major issues. But over time, once they had secured a massive user base, the monetization phase began. Or rather, what used to be called fraud is now referred to as profit maximization by any means necessary.

One of their ‘best’ solutions was the introduction of proxy phone numbers. You post a free ad, but nobody can reach you through the proxy number. The moment you pay for promotion, calls immediately start coming in. But don’t get too excited — these are often employees of Avito or Auto.ru simulating interest in your listing. A month passes, and you assume your ad has simply dropped too low in search results, so you decide to spend more money to boost it again. Once more, ‘potential buyers’ begin calling, although they do not actually exist. If you file a complaint and ask to remove the proxy number, their response is that this cannot be done for ‘security reasons’ and ‘fraud prevention.’ People are forced to pay money while being denied the ability to sell using their own phone numbers, supposedly for safety reasons.

Here is a typical example of how Auto.ru allegedly scams users. An elderly woman decided to sell her car herself. She posted one free advertisement. The very next day it was blocked with the explanation that ‘rule violations had been detected.’ However, she was offered the option to reactivate the listing for 5,000 rubles per week. She paid the amount, and immediately began receiving several calls from so-called buyers. A week later she was required to pay again to keep the ad active. Over the course of a month, she spent her entire pension on advertising fees at Auto.ru. We called every number that had contacted her through the listing — all of them were either disconnected or permanently busy. In other words, these were not real buyers but so-called fake call attempts. To put this into perspective: at 65 years old, she had never been deceived by scammers before, but Auto.ru allegedly managed to take her entire pension.

Avito went even further by selling its ‘Autoteka’ vehicle history reports for listings where nobody even answers the phone. They allegedly filled the platform with fake listings and collect money from users purchasing Autoteka reports. Avito also introduced call quotas: you post an ad, they supposedly make several calls themselves, exhaust your call limit, and then offer to sell you additional call packages.

These platforms also collect photographs of personal documents, and it is unclear where this information ultimately goes. However, spam from various companies increases dramatically afterward.

Online marketplaces are no longer interested in connecting sellers and buyers. Their real interest is extracting as much money as possible from both sides while preventing them from ever actually meeting each other.”