Important Notice on Purchase of Second Hand Vehicles from Japan

The Embassy of Japan in Seychelles has received reports of problems related to importing used vehicles to Seychelles from Japan through internet transactions. These are cases in which importers have transferred money to entities that claim to be authentic second-hand vehicle dealers in Japan and the latter failed to ship the vehicles after receiving the payment. 

The Embassy wishes to advise those who encounter trouble while importing a car and consider it as a fraud to file a report with the Seychelles Police.  The Japan Police conducts investigations in good faith to crackdown such fraud cases based on the requests and reports received from the Seychelles Police through the International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO).  The investigations, however, do not always guarantee that the desired outcome is obtained.
 

The Embassy also wishes to advise prospective buyers to exercise caution when entering into online purchase transactions by exercising due diligence to verify the current operating status of the exporters to avoid trouble.
 

Some Japanese second-hand vehicles dealers are aware of the problem and are taking voluntary preventive actions. In an effort to ease the process of identifying vehicle exporters, a private industrial association - the Japan Used Motor Vehicles Exporters Association (JUMVEA www.jumvea.or.jp) is where prospective individual buyers of used vehicles from Japan may find the JUMVEA members’ list useful, though the Embassy of Japan is not in a position to guarantee the authenticity of each member.