Consumer · Vehicle Marketplace · Ecuador
Used-car marketplace with identity-verified sellers
Every seller proves their identity with the chip in their ID or passport before publishing,
and every ad is reviewed by a person before it goes live.
How do you avoid scams when buying a used car?
A single ring defrauded around eighty people with fake luxury-car sales before eleven of its members were arrested in Guayaquil and Quito.
How the scam works:
- The listing is for a car that doesn't exist. The photos come from another listing, another country, or a catalog
- The price is irresistible, which is why there's a hurry: a deposit is requested before anyone sees anything
- The person listing isn't who they say. A borrowed ID number is enough, because nobody checks it
- And at the border: cars stolen in Peru or Colombia resold with forged paperwork
How the platform fails:
- Listing is free and anonymous: the cost of creating a hundred fake ads is zero
- Photos are uploaded from the gallery, so they can come from anywhere
- By the time the buyer complains, the listing is deleted and so is the account
- Verification, where it exists at all, is a photo of an ID — which anyone can obtain today
Every seller verifies their identity before publishing
Ads are cheap, and the first one of the year is free — in exchange we ask for something a fraudster cannot give.
The seller proves who they are
Before publishing, in the ID Protekt app: an NFC read of the chip in their ID or passport, a liveness check, and a match against the portrait the state put in that chip. Not a photo of the document. Passports and international phone numbers are accepted.
Photos taken in the app
The MiAuto app takes the photos with its own camera — there is no gallery upload — and every plate and face is found and hidden before the ad goes public; the seller sees how each photo will look and can adjust it. Ads whose photos all come from the app carry a Fotos verificadas badge.
A listing with an owner
Every ad is bound to a proven identity and reviewed by a moderator before it goes live. If something goes wrong there is a person behind it — which is exactly the difference.
Search built for Ecuador
Filter by make, model, body type, registration province and the day a car may circulate under pico y placa. Save a search and get a push alert when a match appears.
Badges you can check
Vendedor verificado and Fotos verificadas appear only when they are true, and a tap explains what each one proves — and what it doesn't.
Direct contact
WhatsApp or a call to the verified seller — no intermediary, and no commission on the sale. The number shows only on a tap, rate-limited against scraping.
Sell your car with a listing people believe
Listing cheaply only helps if somebody believes you.
Selling happens on the phone
The whole flow lives in the iOS and Android apps: sign in with an email code, pick any make and model sold in Ecuador, photograph, describe, verify yourself, send for review — then follow the ad on the Lock Screen from review to published. An email at every step of the ad's life, and a printable QR sign for the car. The web portal does the same.
You can see what your advert is doing
How many people saw it, saved it and contacted you, counted as people rather than taps — on a Home Screen widget, without opening the app, and in a weekly summary by email.
An electronic invoice
A paid ad bought on the web comes with an SRI-authorized electronic invoice — issued on the same engine as ISM Faktura. In the apps it is an App Store or Google Play purchase, at the same price.
The ad, without opening the app
On the Lock Screen the seller follows the ad from review until it goes live. On a Home Screen widget they see how many people viewed it, wrote to them and saved it this week.
Left, the progress on the Lock Screen and the Lock Screen widgets; right, the Home Screen widgets. On iOS and Android. Car photo: Ethan Llamas, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Buy knowing who is selling
Trust isn't something you ask for in a banner. It's built before you arrive.
What you can take for granted:
- That the person exists and is who they say, checked against the chip in their document
- That a person reviewed the ad — its details and its photos — before it was published
- That the listing has a named person behind it, not a disposable account
- That a Destacado label always marks the ads that paid to appear first
What is still your job:
- Inspect the vehicle, its registration and its history — we verify the seller, not the car
- Do the transfer at a notary, the way it should be done
- Distrust any deposit requested before you've seen the vehicle, here or anywhere else
- Tell us if something doesn't add up: a listing tied to a proven identity can actually be investigated
Identity verification we built ourselves
MiAuto.ec didn't buy a verification vendor. It uses ID Protekt, which we built.
That makes MiAuto the toughest test ID Protekt could ask for: if a chip read fails, if the liveness check annoys people, or if the flow scares off a legitimate seller, we are the ones who lose the listing. How that join is built is written up in the case study.
Built end to end
Everything below is checkable. Ask us for the evidence on any line.
Built and proven
- The full journey runs: sign-in, identity verification, building the ad, moderation, the payment gate and publishing, tested end to end
- Native iOS and Android apps carry the seller's whole journey, buying the ad included, with photos certified as taken in the app
- The web portal serves sellers, moderators and administrators
- The rule that doesn't bend: identity is verified before any charge exists
Hard to copy
- Every seller verified with the chip of their ID or passport, through ID Protekt, before their ad reaches review
- Every ad reviewed by a person against a fixed checklist, and a rejection always comes with its reasons
- Photos taken in the app earn Fotos verificadas, so buyers can tell at a glance who is real
- Pico y placa and the plate's province on every car — the questions Ecuadorian buyers actually ask
List your car on MiAuto.ec
Verified sellers are the first ones buyers find. If you run a lot, hold inventory or have a car to sell, talk to us.
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