How our service protects the environment and makes business safer
How does the Mevas inspection service impact sustainability? In the worst-case scenario, you buy a second-hand machine and import it at great expense. When it arrives, you discover that it is beyond repair and will require significant investment to be operational. This would mean that you have wasted money and resources.
Our service helps you avoid these problems with an unbiased inspection.
Avoiding long distance travel for machinery inspections
In the past, it was often the case that sellers would put themselves or their mechanic on a plane, hire a vehicle and then drive to the location of the machine. Many kilometres were travelled and a lot of money was spent on travelling until someone was on site to inspect the machine. Often only to find out on the spot that the machine did not meet expectations. Or a machine was bought without an inspection, only to find out on arrival that the condition of the machine did not correspond to the description at all. It was precisely to avoid these things that the inspection company Mevas was founded. Our inspectors are available in many countries and have a travel distance often below 400km one way. Read more about Mevas.
Prevent being cheated
We are often contacted to inspect machines, but we quickly discover that they most probably do not exist. Often, buyers are attracted by particularly low prices. They think they can get a good deal and are happy that nobody else has found this machine yet. Then, they contact us and ask us to carry out an inspection very quickly. Sometimes, they even make a down payment to reserve the machine. In this way, the supposed seller has often already achieved their goal. They have enticed interested parties to send a deposit for a seemingly attractive machine.
In some cases traders manipulate hour meters to get a higher price for aged machinery. Check the working hours of a machine with an expert before you decide for a purchase.
We can only recommend that you heed a few warning signs:
What should one pay attention to?
Fraudsters’ preferred method is to offer machines at particularly low prices. When the interested party contacts the supposed seller, a game begins: the seller suddenly claims that the machine is in high demand and that several interested parties are competing for it. They are pressured to hurry up so they can secure the favourable offer. Even inspecting the machine is only possible after a down payment has been made. Often, the machine is not at the given address because it is stored elsewhere. As soon as the deposit has been paid, the seller suddenly becomes unreachable. The phone goes unanswered. Emails are ignored.
We recommend watching out if:
- Machines are far cheaper than comparable units
- You should hurry up because of other people interested
- The seller does not release the machine serial number
- Down payment is required to reserve machine until inspection
- Pictures of machine are taken in another season (snow, falling leaves)
- Pictures are edited or background has been removed
- The working hours are very low for age
Certifications and Emission Stage
If you are importing construction machinery or vehicles, you must comply with your country’s import regulations. Clarify whether the machines require CE marking and whether an EPA label must be present on the engine. Also, check which emission regulations the machine must comply with. Take care when retrofitting engines to lower emission levels. This is a criminal offence in many countries.
Call the experts in this market
Our team or our local inspector can very often tell at first glance if the offer of a machine or a website does not seem real. If doubts arise, Mevas employees can check the offer according to certain features. Do the telephone numbers match the address given? Can the address be found on Google Maps or Google Street View? When was the domain of the website registered? Have we seen the machine somewhere else before? There are a few more possibilities for checking, which we do not want to go into here for security reasons. We can only recommend: Before you send money to the seller you should make sure that the machine really exists and is in the condition you were promised.
Check wire transfer information
Since fraud can also occur through the interception of emails or the manipulation of website information, we would particularly like to recommend that you verify the bank details with the seller by telephone after receiving the invoice. To be especially careful, call the bank indicated on the invoice and ask if the account number 12345 belongs to the named account holder. It is even more important to be vigilant in times of AI.
Don’t be stingy
Most mistakes when buying used construction machinery happen when the buyer wants to save a lot of money. So you look for a particularly cheap machine and avoid further costs for checking its condition. One is all crazy and excited because one has found such a particularly cheap machine. We can only recommend, have the machine checked on site. If not by us, then by someone else.
Be sure your machines are on the way to you
We can check for machinery and equipment, whether they are present, whether all goods are well prepared for shipment and whether the required documentation is available. Send us your data and requirements for a pre-shipping inspection.