Autotrader.com Reviews

Autotrader used to be fine before it teamed up with Tred, now it seems like it's only a money grab, facebook is a lot easier than autotrader to buy and sell, they need to disban from Tred and become their own company and let customer sell to dealers which sometimes are the only legit buyers, reason why facebook marketplace is on top. It's free and it doesn't block communication.

By far the biggest SCAM currently on the For Sale vehicle market place. You pay money to be placed in tiny print or in the back of the line, but wait there’s more, if you spend a little more, we might make you visible for 5 mins. DO NOT waste your time or money on this SCAM advertising. Private Sellers are treated like garbage and we DO NOT get the notoriety that dealerships do; not like we did back in the day when Auto Trader was legitimate, honest and treated people equally.

As a buyer I was frustrated by the dominance of dealer posts. Used to be this was the place for the regular Joes to swap cars. Not anymore. Even some of the supposed "private party" ads are dealer ads. I had very a difficult time getting private parties to respond. Some never did at all. Finally gave up, found and bought a car off Craigslist.

They buy and sell and take your money but when it comes to getting your title and plates forget about it! My temporary registration is about to expire with no notification of when it will ever come inside! When you call customer service they treat you like absolute crap and hang up on you! Have I just gone to the DMV with all of them done in one day instead I paid them and trusted them to get this done! I feel court action is on the cards! Never again!

I purchased a vehicle on June 8, 2023 and today is July 17th and I still don't have the title. Initially they blamed the seller for not getting them the paperwork but the seller provided me a confirmation from Autotrader indicating they received all of the documents. On 7/7/23 I'm told I'll have the title by 7/12/23. I call them again on 7/14/23 and am told they don't have the paperwork from the seller. I tell them about the confirmation I have and Tracy asks me to hold. Returns to the call and says she'll send it out 2nd day delivery. This morning I get tracking info that says it'll be delivered 7/20/23, 7 WEEKS after the purchase date. All the while the vehicle sits in the garage, undrivable.

Site is horrible. Broken links, difficult to use, VERY FEW LEADS. Instant sale is a poor tool as well, especially adding photos. Overall a lame site with poor options, no leads & costs you $50 to list. There are free sites to sell on that are MUCH better & sites that only charge you if car sells. All better options than Autotrader.

Placed a truck for sale in AutoTrader used KBB as a pricing guide and prostate below KBB value! AutoTrader rates it as a good price but I have looked at exactly the same vehicles that had 22,000 miles and one had 15,000 miles that were priced 4000 above mine and they were rated as a great deal I’m not sure how they determined your standard but I don’t think it is fair, also, private party sales are listed way down below dealer sales I had placed mine and I went looking for it and I could not find it unless I used very specific details of the vehicle. It was nowhere to be found within 10 miles or 25 miles of my ZIP Code I have gotten a few inquiries the first day that ended up not responding back and I have not got any more. AutoTrader is a waste. I used it before and they placed my vehicle upfront with extra pictures for an additional price I paid the extra price this time and still I cannot find the don’t waste your money.

Our Ad has been in for 1 week and all we have had is scammers. Don't waste the $$, not worth the headache. They say they "verify" buyers, but so far I have not seen they are doing a very good job doing this.

I was buying a new and was at the dealer on 6/16/2023. I agreed with the dealer on a vehicle and was awaiting loan approval, we went home and agreed to pick up the car on 6/17/2023. Before leaving we discussed a trade in on a 2012 Camry and I decided to sleep on it. I was interested at what the fair market value was so I went to the AutoTrader website. The value was listed for several thousand more than the dealership offered so I created an account, built an ad and followed the directions. The next step was payment so I entered my credit card and according to the actual directions I had two more steps to complete the transaction. The first was an identity verification (verify I was who I claimed) and finally I was instructed to take a picture of my title front and rear and send it to autotrader. I did not want to do the last step and decided not to use the service.

I paid $49 for a system that doesn't work, trying to upload photos but impossible and yes I did make sure that the size are correct. The system is not friendly at all, they ask for a lot of personal information, supposedly to avoid spam and received to scam on the first day and nothing else since but still cannot download any pictures. Really bad experience, will try others! Thierry

Car was listed per normal process. Got scammed two times. Got agreed price from two mega used car companies but no pick up. Very slow server handling communication. Sold the car on Facebook Marketplace. Will not come back here again.

I paid $49.95 to place an ad for my used car on AutoTrader. The only inquiries I received were from scam artists pitching cashiers checks and other weird ways of payment. My ad clearly said cash only. I placed an ad on Facebook marketplace for free and sold it for the asking price the next day from a nice, local couple paying cash. I'm not shilling for FB as I'm not a huge fan, but in this case it was far superior. Autotrader only gave me grief for my money.

Received 9 sales leads over a 4 day and all were scammers. All with the similar story about being from another state, wife will mail certified check, don't need to see car, look good...just give me your address!! Not one real inquiry. What a magnificent waste of $49. And when I contacted AutoTrader about the scammers, they were of NO help.

I purchased an ad from Autotrader Classics for 6 months @ $99.00. I had numerous scammers trying to contact me via email. They all said the same story, they agreed to the price and would even pay more via a cashiers check then send someone to pickup the vehicle and title. They all have very poor grammar and basically sound as though they are in a different country.

Anytime you start editing options the site goes haywire... I wanted to look at Ford mustangs and it kept showing me BMWs.... Extremely frustrating to say the least.... Garbage, considering what they charge dealers to advertise.

I tried Autotrader three years ago. Same result then that I am getting now even though they "have new software". SPAM, SPAM and more SPAM. And yet, the new company would like you to upload your title, driver's license, etc. but their software cannot control SPAM. WHAT A JOKE? Save your money.

I advertised with classic auto trader. All I received were scam buyers. The other reason I ayes them low are all the ink emails from received. Up to 35 per day and it only stopped when I cancelled my ad. FYI, autotrader.com will not refund any of your money. I signed up for 6 months and cancelled before one month was up. They are a total rip off and you won’t sell a thing on their site.

We tried to sell our car on Autotrader and like everyone else, we just received responses from scammers who were too busy to see the car but they were happy to send a cashier's check plus $500 if we would hold the car and send them our personal information. So disappointing! We did not receive one legitimate response and took the ad down after a few days because it was a complete waste of time. I might as well have thrown my $49 down the toilet. So sad that the once reputable Autotrader has been reduced to this thanks to all the bad apples in the world.

I have been looking a new cars but have been frustrated at the amount of useless data that populates Autotrader. It would appear most of new vehicles listed are not actually for sale. The cars are already pre sold by the auto dealers. With the shortages in new car supply this is just a scam run by both the auto dealers and Autotrader who posts these useless ads.

Do not use to sell your car. Save $49 and post on FB Marketplace. I posted on Autotrader and received one inquiry after 6 days. I posted on FB Marketplace and received 10+ inquiries on the first day and sold my vehicle to the second person that reached out.

This Company is just like every other Used Car Sales Online site that does not promote or help the Private Seller. Put your vehicle on Marketplace and save yourself money and frustration dealing with this Dealer Friendly only site!

This is not the Autotrader of yesteryears, the only inquiries you will get is from scammers, nobody legitimate. We ended up taking our car to a local dealer. Also, the car we posted was a Tesla but Autotrader did not classify the car correctly so if and that's a big "if" real buyers had been searching our model with the longer range mileage, our vehicle would never have shown up. Needless to say we got zero valid inquiries and ad was still incorrectly listed, I removed it, called their customer service. They declined to give a refund so I will be disputing on my credit card. Seriously, stay away. This is not a viable service to sell your car.

Just like another car sales website, plenty of scammers and tire kickers and few legitimate buyers. I sold my car on Facebook for FREE…Could have used this wasted money for a good meal for the wife and myself. Might as well have thrown my money out the window which is why I’m giving them a 1/5 and that other cars website got a 2/5. At least their useless service costs what you get out of it…Nothing.

I posted on Autotrader.com thinking my ad may reach more people than Craigslist or marketplace. Well, I was wrong. Autotrader states that they filter out who messages you. If that is the case, I cant tell. The only messages I have received have been scammers. Save your money, and if you have already wasted it on Autotrader, demand they give a refund.

I listed my used car on Autotrader. I sold it in about a week, but Autotrader was not a good investment. I wouldn't have minded paying $49 if I got legitimate leads, but the only folks who contacted me were scammers and dealers who wanted to purchase the car cheap. I also listed on Facebook and Craigslist, and I got more contacts from Craigslist than any other. Don't bother with Autotrader. I wish a bunch of us could do a class action lawsuit based on similar comments from others.

Spent $49 to list my car on Autotrader. Did not receive a single legitimate contact; every message received was from a scammer. First they tell you that they don't respond to the Autotrader emails, and ask you to contact them directly. Then when you do you get a message like this: (I've received at least 10 messages like this.) "I'm currently not in town for now, so I won't be able to meet with you due to my work frame. I will be making payment via Certified bank check and will be delivered to you in 1-2 days. I don't mind adding extra $30 for you to hold the vehicle for me. Kindly get back to me with your Full name, Full Address, Last Asking price & Phone Number. I will also make arrangement for the pickup as soon as the check clear your bank." I contacted the Autotrader fraud department but received a canned response. Don't waste your time. There are better ways to sell a car.

I paid my 49.00 for an ad. Looked for the ad many times over 5 days and never found it. Only dealerships selling cars are shown. I sent three emails to company with no response. Do not trust this company. Now I have to go to my CC company to fight it. Scammers.

I was able to see past the janky functionality of the website & app, and even the $50 listing fee if the site actually got me real leads. The only messages I received were from scammers. I got zero interest from real buyers! I did better with OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace, and Craigslist. If I'm going to have to deal with scammers, I'll use Craigslist, for $5 and least I'll get some real buyers on there. Save your money. Autotrader is washed up. They can at least use their listing fees to pay some developers to make their site work.

I don't even mind having wasted 49 USD to get an insight of how bad this online "service" is managed. After getting strange ads offering full asking price without seeing the car, if I just kindly remove it asap, it was removed without my permission and NOT by me. After reporting to "fraudwatch"@autotrader, I needed to call them only to hear that they wanted proof of title. Next thing I know I see, my ad got marked SOLD (?? Not by me, either). Further, after uploading a proof of title the ad was still removed "pending review" and remains that way even after 48 hours. Please, somebody help us running this outfit out of business! Now, 3 days later, ad is still "under review". Now a question: who would most likely benefit by removing this ad??

Maybe some people find real buyers on this site but I the responses I received were from bots and scammers. Beware of seller trying to send a certified check and have you ship a car to him. This is a scam. Your bank will initial accept the check and then get the money back from you when it turns out the check is fake.