There will be a fine for imposing services when buying a car.

The State Duma adopted a law that introduces special punishment for stringing additional goods, works or services to buyers. Whether an administrative fine of two to four thousand rubles for individual entrepreneurs and officials, and 20-40 thousand for companies, will prevent violations of this kind – time will tell. Legislators abandoned the original idea of ​​punishing in amounts that are multiples of the cost of imposed services or goods.

The bill was introduced to the State Duma in June last year by deputies Ivan Sukharev and Sergei Karginov (both LDPR). They considered that the Code of Administrative Offenses is not effective in protecting consumers from the imposition of various additional goods and services as a prerequisite for concluding sales contracts. When Mr. Sukharev reported on the essence of the initiative during its first reading, he mainly talked about the outrages in the sale of cars. According to him, Rospotrebnadzor also considers the current penalties for imposing goods and services insufficient, because “they do not stop unscrupulous sellers.”

For additional services and goods, there is currently no separate punishment in the Code of Administrative Offenses; they are punished (if at all) under Article 14.8 of the Code of Administrative Offenses: inclusion in the contract of conditions that infringe on the rights of the consumer costs an official a fine of 1-2 thousand rubles, and a legal entity – 10-20 thousand rubles. Deputies from the LDPR proposed to fill the gap, and for “imposing additional goods (work, services) on consumers, officials should be fined in the amount of twice the cost of what was imposed, and legal entities – in the amount of three times the cost of what was imposed. Let us remind you: if some article of the Code of Administrative Offenses does not stipulate a special punishment for individual entrepreneurs, they are fined as officials.

The government generally supported the initiative of the deputies – subject to the revision of the text. “The provisions of the bill regarding the amount of administrative fines require additional elaboration, taking into account the requirements of proportionality and individualization of administrative responsibility, as well as the possibility of paying administrative fines by persons who are subjects of these administrative offenses,” the official review says

cabinet of ministers. A similar remark was made by the relevant Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation. During the discussion of the bill, deputies were interested in whether the owners of car dealerships who refuse to sell a car to a citizen for cash and find various reasons to encourage him to take out a car loan would be subject to the new norm. “If we literally consider the text of the bill, then this case will fall within the scope,” answered then the representative of the relevant committee, Alexander Teterdinko (“ER”). How will it be possible to prove the fact of imposition of services if the seller denies everything and there are no witnesses?

The final decision, of course, rests with the court, Mr. Teterdinko explained. He expressed confidence that the law being adopted will definitely “completely kill the imposition of additional goods and services on the Internet, because everything will be visible there,” and in car dealerships and furniture stores, the buyer will have to worry about recording the conversation with the seller – otherwise it may be difficult to actually prove the fact of a violation.

What happened in the end? Adopted in the third, final reading, the law, modified taking into account comments, established fines for the imposition of additional goods (work, services) at 2-4 thousand rubles for officials, and at 20-40 thousand rubles for legal entities…

“MK” asked to evaluate the adopted document by the Chairman of the Union of Consumers of the Russian Federation, Petr SHELISCH.

– How relevant is the problem of imposing goods and services?

– Establishing penalties for this type of violation became necessary after changes were made to the law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights” last year – essentially, we are talking about a new wording of Article 16, which provides a specific list of signs of invalid terms of sales contracts, provision of services, etc. When mandatory requirements are established, the absence of at least administrative liability for their violation discredits the legislation as a whole. Therefore, of course, amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses were necessary.

The problem is urgent. We hear a lot of stories from people who buy cars about how additional services are imposed on them. At the same time, the owners of car dealerships refer to the fact that car manufacturers sell them goods at a price that is actually close to the market retail price, and offer to make a profit through various kinds of additional services… This is such an unhealthy model, which from our point of view should be eliminated in every possible way, but it persists on the dependence of car dealers on large car manufacturers. Here, in our opinion, the Federal Antimonopoly Service should have intervened, which, unfortunately, did not happen.

The situation is similar in the banking sector, when when granting a loan they require insurance, and from a specific insurer affiliated with the bank. Many banks earn more from this than from lending itself…

This is also abnormal, and the problem must be solved somehow.

– But will fines that are not very impressive by today’s standards help?

– At first glance, for large companies a fine of 20-40 thousand rubles is not significant, but if there are such cases for each case of violation, and we are dealing with typical stories, and if there are more than one such fines of 40 thousand every day – this is sensitive even for large companies. So the law may be effective. And if it doesn’t turn out to be the case, we will have to further discuss the transition to turnover fines, which for some companies could be fatal…