SCRUT.MY, developed by Ifcon Technology Sdn Bhd, has recently become one of the most talked about websites in town.
A recent post that went viral on the internet regarding a Whatsapp threat from an unknown source that threatened the developer of Scrut.my to take down its recently launched Japan car auction history website stimulated debate among thousands of Internet users. Some said it was a marketing gimmick, while others said it was genuine.
In an interview with Cars, Bikes and Trucks (CBT), co-founders of Scrut.my Nik Muhammad Izwan Nik Mohd Kamel and Ahmad Aliff Ahmad Shariffuddin cleared the air saying thata police report had been made on the incident.
Nik and Aliff, who are both car enthusiasts themselves, said there were even “influential people” who came forward and advised them to shut down the site.
However, feeling it was the right thing to do, Nik and Aliff have decided to carry on as the site is meant to educate the public on how to research the true status of the recondition car (recon car) that they want to buy.
They added that there were many unscrupulous dealers out there.
“Some irresponsible recon car dealers will alter the odometer, to make it appear as a low mileage car,” said Nik.
He said there were even cases whereabadly damaged accident car was sold as a low mileage, “good condition” car.
“If the car has travelled more than 100,000km, it requires more maintenance to keep the car running,” Nik said.
Nik and Aliff disclosed that they had the idea of setting up Scrut.my when they participated in a “Godam Sahur” (Hackathon during Sahur) event and it only took them three days to set up and launch the website.
“The idea was to create a minimum viable product,” said Aliff
They said that on May 13, when the site was launched, there were about 200 users and that number grew more than 3,000 users over the next five days.
“This means that the public want this product and most of the users have already boughtarecon car,” they said.
The duo mentioned that when they successfully secured the data from the Japanese company, it was planned for another project.
“We will expand the database. We are trying to get the data from the United Kingdom,” Nik said.
With 50 credits (one credit equals to RM1), a user is able to get the grade, image, mileage, any report on modification, year of make, and the inspection house of the vehicle, after the user keys in the vehicle identification number (VIN).
If the user purchases four reports at once, it will sum up to RM140 or RM35 per report.
“The recon car bosses have all these details when they auction the cars from Japan, but most of them decided not to disclose the information to their customers.
“We just want to create a more transparent recon car businesses and maybe some recon car dealers might change their concept of business — to sell better quality recon cars,” said Nik.
They added that they would continue with their initial plan for the usage of the data.
“Next year,there will be more transparency for people who want to buy cars from overseas,” they said.