Autotrader.com Reviews

The Autotrader.com site is terrible. Chat works intermittently. Then when a deal has been negotiated AT blocks any further communication until person is verified. I feel scammed. Last famous words of the fool. "Oh, we will not lose your data." Then seller chats me this morning that he cannot see my offer. Calling support once again. So wrong. Other issues also, too much to explain. I did it all because of the vehicle. Autotrader is a scam.

Zero stars- provided no service. Waste of $30 to get nothing but scammers. Will never use again and will tell everyone I know that this website is BS.

Full of scammers. I paid $49 to list my 2023 Ford F-150 on AutoTrader, expecting that a well-established company like AutoTrader would provide a reasonably safe marketplace for private sellers. Instead, virtually every inquiry I received appeared to be an attempt to move me off the AutoTrader platform and into a potential scam.

I signed up for Autotrader to list a car for sale. I immediately was contacted by someone who turned out to be a scammer, wanting to go off-platform to communicate in private. They wanted to pay full price for the car sight-unseen, of course, but had shady requests about how to make the payment and transfer the vehicle. BLOCKED and REPORTED. One scammer after the next came and went the same way. Not ONE real user ever contacted me through Autotrader, despite dropping the price well below market value. Other platforms (cars.com and a local service) were FREE and had good engagement and I sold the car within about 10 days for near my asking price. Autotrader is full of scammers that they don't verify or block. I asked for a refund and was flatly denied. AVOID Autotrader and put your money elsewhere!

Total scam and anyone who contacts you about a vehicle you have listed is a secondary scam! Some serious B.S. and they will not refund you!

Same experience as the others. In the span of 9 days, I think I got 1 legitimate inquiry and about 30 scam attempts. Autotrader offered to buy my car at about 1/3 wholesale. Can't simply delete the scammers. The website is not user-friendly.

Well shame on me for not reading the reviews about the platform but 100% agree this is a waste of money and a 99% scam offers from out of state. 1 low ball offer that was probably a scam.

I would give zero stars if allowed. Two weeks of listing. Nothing but scammers trying to get you to contact them outside Autotrader. Not one real inquiry. Sold vehicle on FB Marketplace with none of this BS. Waste of money.

Worst company, need to be shut down, in one day my phone blew up with 40 fraudulent customer, (from all over the world) not one local buyer. Do not, DO NOT, use this website period.

Can I give no stars? Used to be one of the best places to find or sell a car.. I am doing both.. and all the negative reviews are right... just put a for sale sign and park it in your yard like the old days!

Platform is horrible in all ways - Waste of Money. I have received one low ball offer 8k lower than offer price, one message from a dealership that may be scam, and 15+ spam/scam messages. It's worse than marketplace on here. Just constantly trying to get you to buy something, or a robot with a mass message to get you to text or call off the platform. Platform from the seller side is also abysmal. Barely navigable and insanely glitchy whether on the website on a computer, on website on a phone, or the app. It's actually the worst integration I've seen in recent years. Must not have been updated at all in the last 5-10 years or have no support any more. Waste of money, big regret.

My experience with AutoTrader was extremely disappointing from beginning to end. I listed my 2017 Hyundai Sonata Sport and paid $29.99 for the listing plus an additional $15 for the Spotlight feature, expecting to reach qualified buyers. Instead, I received 32 scam inquiries and not a single genuine buyer through AutoTrader.

Autotrader is a scam now. 100% scam. You pay $30 to list your vehicle for sale and get messages from nothing but scammers and bots. It is worse than marketplace. Then they try to refuse to refund your money.

Idiotically difficult to reach a private seller!!! Biometric verification just to send an electronic inquiry!!! You have lost your mind, you are not facilitating sales, you are hampering and destroying sales from private parties to private parties.

All of the reviews are correct. I posted my vehicle for sale and the majority of the inquiries were scammers asking to be contacted at an external email or phone. To make it worse, the user interface doesn't allow you to delete messages from your inbox, which makes finding the select few messages that might be legit even harder. Totally regret spending the effort to post on the website. Stick with FB Marketplace.

Waste of time. Would give zero stars if an option. All responses were scams. AutoTrader would not refund my full cost so can't say anything but would never use again

Horrible. I received 15 inquiries in 10 days and every single one was a scammer.

Autotrader used to list the name and contact information of the person placing the ad of whatever vehicle you were viewing. Now they have turned their website into a personal information gathering website where you have to send a copy of your ID to contact one of their 'potential' sellers if an individual is selling their vehicle. IF it's a dealership, you can still see what dealership has the vehicle but let's face it, dealers make bank on their used vehicles.

Stay away!!!!!! Friggen crappy. ALL REPLIES WERE SCAMMERS. Not a one real buyer. Biggest waste of money out there. Auto Trader may have been good years ago, but nothing but scammers now. POS.

Sucks. 0 stars. Don't try to privately sell your vehicle on this site. Nothing but scammers. It is a total waste of time. I literally got 2-3 scammers every single day trying to get you off of the platform or trying to buy above the asking price or trying to make you go to a third party site. Many are subtle and start out legit but it always ends up that they are phishing. I finally gave up and took my ad down. Don't waste your time.

One scam after another! I have received the same email from 5 different contacts:

STAY AWAY! If I could give it zero stars I would. My ad has been up for only a couple of hours and the scammers are rife! Total waste of my time. The site also wouldn't upload my photos and when I sent 21 photos to the tech team they uploaded only 5 photos. It also won't let me change the location of my vehicle. I have typed in my zip code and it keeps saying I am in a state and town that I am not. I am currently on the phone with customer service who are refusing to give me a full refund and cancel my ad.

I am selling a used car in the private buyer section. Got to say the software to load and edit my listing was great and easy. This even suggested a more current price for the vehicle. Get 100% for your system. Started getting replies in a few hours, within the second day I had 8 replies and was feeling pretty good. The problem was every one that replied was a scammer, and they are collage level good. The scam you ask, simple get the car owner to purchase a vin background and Yes you get one free with Experian vin (Supplied) by Autotrader). They will string you alone about bringing cash, coming by with the family, being right over or first thing in morning.

I wish I had come to this site to look up Autotrader. I had used them years ago when it was a simple process to list a car. That is no longer the case. DO NOT USE THIS WEBSITE OR APP! Nothing but scammers and 1 stupid lowball (1/3 the asking price). They make you give them so much un-needed information when you list and they spend "0" time checking on the legitimacy of buyers! this was a egregious waste of money....I pulled my add after 4 days and I'll NEVER use them again!

AutoTrader is unusable to sell a car. I’ve had a vehicle for sale on there for less than a week and received about 40 scam messages but no legitimate buyers. The only thing happening here is that AutoTrader takes your money to sell a car which is in itself a scam.

I have listed on this site 3 times. Every time I have nothing but scammers. Should have saved my $$. Run far away. Too many AH here. Never again!!

First week of trying to sell a private auto and nothing but scammers have responded. I used Autotrader about 6 years ago and had a great experience. Now, nothing but scammers. Considering dropping and advertising elsewhere. Note: As soon as the "interested party" asks you to send a phone message or email, block them immediately.

Truck has been listed for 3 days....12 various scam attempts and no genuine buyers. I have wasted more time vetting and responding to fake replies. I will be taking off and will ask for a refund. Had 2 people actually look at the truck from my Facebook marketplace ad.

Absolutely horrible. 99% of the communications when selling a car are scammers. A complete waste of time.

What a waste of time and money. I have received nothing but scammers with their "regards" and "kindlys". Everyone is out of town, buying it for someone else, and either too busy or too sick to come see the vehicle, yet they can send me a cashier's check and arrange for the car to be picked up. Don't waste your time with Autotrader, no longer a legit way to sell a vehicle.

I paid $50+ to place my add and started receiving text right away from people interested in my car. However, I could not respond because I could not log into my account. When I tried to reset my password, it said email not registered. When I tried to re-register, it said email already exist. No one could help. After three days of calling them, someone filled out a IT request form and said it would take up to five business days for someone to look into it. In the meantime I continue to get text from interested buyers I cannot respond to. Poor service!!!

These guys are a joke!!!!! Communication is horrible, you can sit in the chat for hours with no response. Did the pre-approval with money down, decided I wanted to put more money down, somehow with over double the money down, my APR jumped 4% payment went up and then the next day I was told West Lake wouldn’t loan me the money because I have 6 open auto loans. I told them that’s absolutely not true, there is a mistake, waited all day to receive a email saying they would not go through with the deal because of all the auto loans. Spent hours trying to get someone from Westlake on the phone, only to find out there was never even an app submitted to them for anything. Called an actual real dealer, got approved in minutes on a more expensive newer car, and a 7% APR drop. Anyone using Auto Trader Private Seller, I feel bad for you.

I paid for an ad to sell my truck and got nothing but scammers for two weeks! Complained to company and got absolutely nothing! They are an open platform, blah, blah, blah! They try to weed out scammers, blah, blah, blah! They have no refund policy, so I wasted not only time, but money. Ended up selling on Marketplace with much less scammer action.

Agree with most reviews, the website is littered with scum scammers so you need to be diligent and not ever respond email/text. 9 scammers for every 1 legit buyer. So, just advertise and use the Autotrader chat, only. That said, I found dream buyers and sold my car privately in 5 days. The $49 ad fee was worth the money in my case.

I have been on the site for 3 days and all but 2 of the inquiries appear to be scams. I am not finding it to be a site I will ever use again. Too much abuse by buyers or groups of buyers. I do not respond to anyone who does not want to one of these steps - test drive, meet in person, transact the payment at the bank with CASH, or use the Autotrader process. It is at extreme risk if you don't do these things. The scams are real and you can end up with no money and no vehicle. I am still waiting for a valid buyer after almost 50 inquiries.

Worst site ever to sell on. Thought I'd a vehicle on this site instead of Facebook Marketplace. Never had so many ghosts in my life. Constant offers, acceptance, and then nothing. Test drive appointments, sit at home waiting and no one shows up. Complete crap, no vetting. 5 times worse than Facebook, best part... You gotta pay for this junk.

Allow my voice to join the chorus of reviews touting scammers, phishing, and other fraud on Autotrader. I wanted to give Auto Trader the opportunity to resolve this, and they agreed the site has mostly spammers for the "first 48 hours," that's conservative. After one week, all we had were scammers wanting us to visit websites and pay for reports, then be blocked by Auto Trader, after calling and hearing them agree they offered a refund of $19, Facebook Marketplace is the best bet. The car was sold there in three days, for free!

Total crap. It seems that I can only sell through their private seller exchange, where they insert themselves into the process for 1%. Really? It's a website folks. Well maybe it will reduce the BS scam garbage that lives on CL and FBM. No dice. received multiple complete BS responses within 2 hrs of placing ad. Deleted the ad the same day. Bye Bye Autotrader. Was good to know you - I had sold maybe 10 cars through the years, going back to when it was a print magazine. See ya.

$49 to list your car...for what? Sifting through the scammers? Fake offers? I regret giving them my money. This has been nothing but a constant "is this a scammer, too?" Game. What a joke. FYI, I'm also listed on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist and none of this happens there. I told them what was happening and asked for a refund but they refused. Also, why do they want us to upload our information i.e. driver's license, title to their site? No way!

Not a good experience. I had 2 buyers requesting 2 different car VIN reports I never heard of. Even though I provided one that I use (for years), was not acceptable to them. I believe there's additional fees based on selling price (commission). The chat back and forth is cumbersome and too many restrictions. I can not recommend Auto Trader (private seller exchange). In fact, I'll never use again. I pulled my ad in just one day, a waste of good money, lesson learned.