"ANTS: your change-of-ownership file no. CG-40872 is incomplete. Settle the fixed duty of €13.76 before 21/09 or your registration will be cancelled: http://ants-titulaire-gouv.co/dossier"
You sold your Clio last Saturday in a supermarket car park. A handshake, an envelope of cash counted twice, a transfer certificate signed in duplicate, and that sentence you said without quite believing it: "I'll file the declaration online tonight." Which you did, as it happens. You even received a transfer code, which you forwarded to the buyer by text.
Since then, nothing. And this message lands at just the right moment, with a file number, a precise amount, a two-day deadline. It reaches sellers and buyers alike — the fraudsters cast a wide net, knowing that France records roughly 5.5 million used-vehicle transactions a year.
The scam doesn't invent a problem for you. It puts a name to the administrative fog you're already lost in.
Why vehicle registration is the perfect hunting ground
Since the closure of the prefectures' "carte grise" counters in November 2017, under the Plan préfectures nouvelle génération, every registration procedure goes through the ANTS (Agence nationale des titres sécurisés) or an accredited professional. There is no longer a desk where you can ask, "is this letter normal?"
The result: millions of users carry out, once or twice in their lives, a procedure they don't know, on a website they've never used, with vocabulary they don't master. Transfer code, acknowledgement of registration, provisional registration certificate (CPI), regional tax, fixed duty, delivery fee. Who knows off the top of their head which of these terms involves a payment and which doesn't?
Add to that a perfectly legal but visually confusing ecosystem: dozens of private accredited-intermediary websites with names like "service-carte-grise" or "demarche-immatriculation", sporting tricolour logos and official-looking layouts. The Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes (DGCCRF) regularly issues warnings about these platforms, which charge assistance fees for a procedure that is free or nearly free. Fraudsters, for their part, need only slip into an already blurred picture.
And above all: selling a vehicle creates an identifiable window of waiting. The seller is waiting for the acknowledgement of the transfer declaration. The buyer is waiting for the final registration certificate, which arrives by tracked mail, often more than a week later. Both know a document is due. Both are receptive to a message that mentions their file.
Anatomy of the booby-trapped message
The campaigns observed since the start of 2026 recycle four or five templates, with varying amounts:
"ANTS — Your registration application is awaiting payment (regional tax). Without settlement, your provisional certificate will expire."
"Registration Service: the transfer declaration for vehicle AB-123-CD has not been validated. You remain liable for any offences. Confirm here."
"Your registration certificate could not be delivered (incomplete address). Delivery fee of €2.76 to be paid."
Note the shared mechanism: the message doesn't ask for a large sum. It asks for a small, credible sum. €2.76, €13.76, €27.76 — amounts that look like real administrative charges, precisely because some of them are. The delivery fee for the certificate really is €2.76. The fixed duty really does exist. The scammer isn't bluffing about the figure; he's bluffing about the channel.
Because the bank card entered on the fake form isn't used to pay €2.76. It's used to enrol your card in a mobile payment wallet, or to trigger a far heavier debit that you'll validate yourself a few minutes later, when an "adviser" calls to get you to read out the code you've just received by text.
The second stage: the theft of supporting documents
Some variants ask for no money at all — which paradoxically makes them more dangerous, since the reflex "someone's asking me to pay, that's suspicious" never kicks in.
They request an upload of documents: photos of both sides of your ID card, proof of address, driving licence, old registration certificate, insurance certificate. Exactly the list a genuine ANTS application requires. Except that this complete kit is the raw material of identity theft: opening consumer credit, taking out a phone contract, and above all SIM swapping, the technique whereby a fraudster obtains a duplicate of your SIM card in order to intercept your banking codes.
A photographed ID document then circulates for years. That's why it's worth, before any legitimate document submission, scanning them cleanly and adding a statement of purpose — a portable document scanner or a simple scanning app lets you add a watermark reading "copy intended for the ANTS, 19/09/2026", which makes the document unusable elsewhere.
What a registration certificate really costs (and what costs nothing)
The best defence here isn't technical: it's about pricing. A user who knows the real amounts spots a fake in ten seconds.
| Procedure | Real cost | How it's paid |
|---|---|---|
| Transfer declaration by the seller | Free | No payment, ever |
| Transfer code sent to the buyer | Free | Generated online |
| Acknowledgement of the transfer registration | Free | Downloadable immediately |
| Change of ownership | Regional tax (based on fiscal horsepower and region) + fixed duty + €2.76 delivery | In a single payment, on the official online service, at the time of the application |
| Provisional registration certificate | Included | Downloadable after validation |
| Duplicate registration certificate | Fixed duty + delivery | On the official online service |
Two lessons to take away without fail:
- On the seller's side, there is never anything to pay. Not a euro, not a cent, no "deregistration tax", no "transfer file handling fee". Any text message demanding money from a seller is fraudulent, without exception.
- On the buyer's side, everything is paid at once, at the time of the application. The administration never comes back to you a fortnight later to claim an extra payment by text message with a link.
The official website is immatriculation.ants.gouv.fr, and access is via FranceConnect. A domain ending in .co, .info or .online, or with gouv placed anywhere other than at the end of the address (ants-gouv.titres-fr.com is not a State website), should set off the alarm.
The six signs that give away a fake text message
- A clickable link. Official ANTS communications come by email from an
@ants.gouv.fraddress and by post. The certificate itself arrives by tracked letter from La Poste. A text message with a shortened URL or an exotic domain: curtain down. - A deadline with numbers attached. "Within 48 hours", "before 21/09", "or your registration will be cancelled". The administration grants extensions and sends reminders; it doesn't threaten to cancel a vehicle registration by text.
- An odd file number. Genuine ANTS application numbers don't look like "CG-40872". If you've filed the procedure, compare it with your personal account.
- A vague legal threat. "You remain liable for any offences" plays on a very real fear among sellers — but if you've declared the transfer, your acknowledgement of registration is your proof. Keep it.
- A sender using an 06 or 07 number. Government sender IDs are standardised; a personal mobile number is a strong clue. Be careful, though: SMS Blasters — fake mobile base stations — now make it possible to spoof a sender name. The absence of any visible anomaly proves nothing.
- A form asking for your bank card AND your ID document on the same page. No public online service works that way.
The special case of the transfer code
This is the most misunderstood point in the whole procedure, and fraudsters have spotted it.
When the seller declares the transfer online, the system generates a fifteen-character transfer code, valid for fifteen days, which the buyer will use for their change-of-ownership application. The seller therefore passes it on to a stranger — often by text, in the car park, in a rush.
Two abuses have been observed:
- The bogus buyer who asks for more. After the sale, a message: "Hi, the transfer code you gave me has expired, can you send me a photo of the old registration certificate and of your ID so I can unblock the file?" A legitimate buyer never needs your ID card. They need the signed transfer certificate, the registration certificate crossed out with the words "sold on …" and your signature, and the code. Nothing else.
- The reverse fake seller. The buyer receives a text purporting to come from "the ANTS", announcing that the code is invalid and inviting them to "regenerate" the file on a fake site, where they will hand over their bank details.
One down-to-earth piece of advice: keep a paper trail of the transaction. A document wallet for car paperwork kept in the glovebox with the duplicate transfer certificate, a photocopy of the crossed-out registration certificate and the acknowledgement of registration lets you check in thirty seconds whether a message makes sense, rather than digging through your texts under pressure.
What to do if you've clicked
The costliest reflex is paralysis. A few steps, in order:
- Block your card immediately with your bank if you've entered card details. The interbank emergency number 0 892 705 705 works outside branch opening hours.
- Don't answer any incoming calls in the hours that follow. The fake bank adviser almost always comes after the fake form. If someone asks you to read out a code received by text, they are robbing you.
- Report the message to 33700, the national scheme for reporting unwanted and fraudulent text messages: forward the text to 33700, then send the sender's number when prompted.
- Report the fraudulent address on the Phishing Initiative platform and file a report via Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr, which also points you towards assistance providers.
- In the event of identity theft, file a complaint at a police station or online via the e-fraud online complaint service (THESEE), and ask the Banque de France to record the fraud if credit has been taken out in your name.
- Change the passwords for your FranceConnect account and associated services. A paper password manager or a password notebook is perfectly sufficient for anyone who doesn't want an app — provided you don't leave it in the car.
According to Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr's annual report, phishing remains year after year the leading threat reported by individuals, and text messages have become its dominant vector, ahead of email. Google announced in September 2026 the rollout in France of enhanced scam detection in the Messages app on Android, with automatic sorting of suspicious messages. Useful, but partial: no filter replaces knowing the real prices.
Selling or buying without getting caught: the checklist
- File the transfer declaration the same day, from your ANTS account via FranceConnect, and download the acknowledgement of registration straight away.
- Cross out the registration certificate, write "Sold on [date, time]" or "Transferred on…", add the date and your signature, and hand the detachable coupon to the buyer.
- Send the transfer code once only, and refuse any subsequent request for ID documents.
- If you're using an intermediary, check that they appear on the list of accredited professionals published by the administration — and compare their service fees with the real cost of the certificate.
- Never reach the online service through a link you've received: type the address yourself, or go via service-public.fr.
- For handing over the keys, arrange to meet in a well-lit, busy place; some sellers also add a dash cam, useful both for the test drive and as a record of the transaction.
The fake registration-certificate text message scam relies on no technical feat whatsoever. It relies on the fact that nobody knows by heart the delivery fee for a vehicle registration certificate. Now you do: €2.76, paid once, on a .gouv.fr website, and never after a text message.
