The Association of Insurers of Serbia has launched the CarCheck mobile application, which will help citizens with the sale and purchase of used vehicles, the association’s website announced.

The aim of the application is to provide reliable data about the vehicle for buyers and to help sellers, who will be able to prove the accuracy of the data about the vehicle they are selling with the help of the CarCheck application for mobile devices.

Compared to similar applications that also exist on the Serbian market, CarCheck will enable a completely free inquiry per vehicle, on the basis of which potential buyers will be able to find out first of all whether the vehicle exists in the database and check the year of manufacture of that car, the date of first registration in Serbia (for vehicles registered for the first time after June 1, 2011) whether and until when the vehicle was registered, whether it changed category, etc. Once they check this and get the information, potential buyers will be able to decide if they are interested in a particular vehicle.

Should they be interested, by simply sending an SMS from the CarCheck application, they will also receive other data that will facilitate their purchase decision, such as the number of accidents in which the vehicle was involved according to the damages reported from the auto liability, whether the color of the bodywork was changed, that whether the vehicle was owned by a legal entity or a leasing company, i.e. whether it was used as a taxi vehicle. Also, the potential buyer will receive information on whether and how many owners the vehicle has changed and based on the year of production and first registration in Serbia, they will also know whether the vehicle was imported or bought new in Serbia.

Considering the high costs of creating, maintaining and enabling the infrastructure for the operation of the CarCheck application, the Association decided on a symbolic sum that citizens will pay to obtain data, even though the application is completely non-commercial. Basic data, year of production and year of first registration in Serbia, are completely free, while other data will be charged at RSD 890 dinars (EUR 7.6). Users of all mobile phone operators operating in the Republic of Serbia will be able to use this service.

Android users can download this application for free from Google play, while the application is expected to become available for iPhone users through the "Apple Store" soon. Citizens who do not want their vehicle to be searched have the option to exclude their vehicle from the search using the CarCheck application, but then they will not be able to search other vehicles either. After re-enabling their vehicle to be searched, the owner will still not be able to search for others for a period of 30 days.

In order to prevent any abuse, the Association of Insurers decided to limit the number of daily inspections from one mobile device to a maximum of four inspections only for registered users, while others have the possibility to inspect a maximum of two vehicles.