“The Valley Scheme” has reached the car market: how cars are taken away from Russians
Lawyers report the emergence of “schemes involving pensioners” on the car market
A new wave of fraud is gaining momentum in Russia, in which car owners become victims of scammers. By analogy with the sensational case of the return of the apartment to singer Larisa Dolina, criminals are forcing people, mostly pensioners, to sell their cars at a reduced price, and transfer the proceeds to so-called “safe accounts.” When the deception is discovered, the courts invalidate such transactions, the cars are confiscated from bona fide buyers, and the money remains with the criminals.
How the scheme works
Fraudsters find victims through mass calls, posing as employees of banks or law enforcement agencies. They exert strong psychological pressure, convincing the car owner that his finances or property are in danger, and the only salvation is to urgently sell the car and transfer the proceeds to an account controlled by the scammers.
- A 64-year-old resident of Cherepovets in November 2024, under the influence of deception, sold her 2020 Volkswagen for 2.4 million rubles, which was significantly lower than the market value. In July 2025, the court granted her claim, declaring the deal invalid, since the plaintiff “could not understand the meaning of her actions.”
- Maria Morozova from Moscow, after her account on State Services was hacked and calls from false FSB officers, sold her car for 750 thousand rubles. The scammers, constantly maintaining contact with her and intimidating her with growing “credit,” controlled the entire transaction process.
- The buyer, Evgeny Durgaryan, purchased the car from a girl who, as it turned out later, also acted under the dictation of the swindlers. After the deal, the car was wanted, and Evgeniy himself was detained as a suspect in theft.
The scope of the problem and legal advice
According to experts, the number of car frauds in 2025 has increased by 40% compared to the previous period. The total amount of damage from the actions of scammers since the beginning of the year has exceeded 120 billion rubles.
Lawyers give the following recommendations to avoid becoming a victim of such schemes:
- Don't panic. Fraudsters use pressure and haste tactics. Don't make hasty decisions.
- Take a pause to think. If the price of a car is greatly reduced, and the seller is in a hurry with registration, this is an alarming signal.
- Contact a notary. The notary checks the legal purity of the transaction and the details of the seller. If the value of the property is clearly lower than the market value, the notary will not certify such a transaction.
- Remember the “cooling off period”. No one has the right to force you to make a deal immediately.
Despite the fact that, by law, a bona fide buyer has every right to a refund of the money paid for the car, in practice this is almost impossible to achieve. The money he transferred to the seller has already gone to the scammers, and the seller himself, who was their victim, does not have the means to compensate. As a result, the innocent buyer finds himself in an extremely vulnerable position, losing both his money and his car, which is seized and returned to the original owner by court order.
At the end of October 2025, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation also took the position of protecting bona fide buyers, pointing out that a forged signature on documents alone is not enough to seize a car if the owner himself handed it over to the seller. However, the bulk of claims from defrauded owners who acted under the influence of swindlers are satisfied, leaving bona fide buyers both without money and without a car.
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