Bring a Trailer Reviews

I’ve purchased several high-end cars through BaT, but twice now, I’ve had absolutely horrendous experiences. Sellers failed to send me the titles, deliberately made errors to prevent me from transferring the car into my name, and worst of all, BaT has no proper human-driven escalation process to protect buyers. They hide behind delayed, unhelpful email responses. It’s been months, and I still haven't received a valid title for a luxury car I paid for. I wish I could cancel and get my money back, but BaT has provided no meaningful assistance. People should steer clear of this broken business model.

BAT will not list a car with a reserve price that is close to what it is worth. They only make money if the car sells, so they will lowball the seller on the reserve to make sure it sells, even if the seller loses a large percentage of their value to weak bidding! I tried to use them to sell a car that has comparable cars listed online right now for prices between the high 50ks and high 70ks. My car is a mint condition example with less than 20k miles, fully optioned, and clean, with factory accessories like car cover and battery tender. BAT refused to list it unless I lowered my reserve bid from my stated 60k down to 45k, which is 10k less than any other listed comparable car on earth.

Seems like there is discrimination at work in the selection process. I own a classic 1979 Cadillac hot rod with close to $200,000 in documented improvements that was turned down by BAT. They would not allow me to post my car for sale and offered no logical explanation. My car was originally owned by my grandfather who purchased it new in 1979. It was passed down to my mother, father and brother before finally making its way to me. I invested a ton of money and spent more than 10 years customizing the car, using the best of everything available. I have a professional appraisal and receipts for every penny spent. hey claim to carefully curate every car on the platform, yet there are multiple cars similar to mine but no where near as beautiful. Makes no sense and the worst part is the lack of professionalism in simply providing a clear policy detailing how the selection/qualification process works - because it doesn't.

On August 19th I purchased a car that was represented by Autosport Design of Station New York. It is apparent the dealer didn't represent the car with full transparency. When I received the car it was running poorly. I then had the car inspected by a professional Mechanic. He discovered the following; a push rod through the rocker arm. Service tire rubbing due to oversize rims on both front and rear. Dysfunctional Speedometer. A Battery that wouldn't hold a charge. Broken steering wheel spoke. Numerous paint flaws that weren't pointed out in presentation. There were other mechanical issues discovered that would of been found had the dealer inspected the vehicle prior to listing the car for sale.

We won a car at Bring a Trailer auction. Bring a trailer listing said it was a 5 speeds but the dealer listing, Fantasy Junction from California, said it was a 6 speeds like were looking for. Bring a trailer policy is to get any potential buyer/bidder to do their due diligence calling the dealer for any additional info or for inspecting the car before bidding and we did.

Stay away from B-a-T shipping! Waited 2 1/2 weeks after prepaying, and still no shipper lined up. Contacted my own broker ($378.less) and will have truck picked up in 2 days. B-a-T won't refund my $2,128. for 5 days. Very unorganized with confused correspondence.

Updated on 08/07/2024: They need several days only to respond to emails. Phone calls are not answered at all. Then it takes weeks again until you can start with the process. And after a while, they are telling you that they will not accept your vehicle although it is a one of a kind vintage car. The whole experience is very disappointing.

I recently bid on a 1974 Coyote powered Bronco that had a rebuilt/restored Utah title in the description on the site and won. I previously purchased a Bronco on the site with a clean PA title and obtained insurance with no problem. I planned on financing a portion of the 74 Bronco and after both the finance company and my insurance agent pulled the title it was classified as a salvage. Thus, non financeable, nor insurable so I backed out of the purchase. Emailed and called BAT with no response regarding the 5% auction fee charged to my credit card. Now gonna fight it with my credit card company. BAT, nor the seller ever disclosed the truck was a salvage and the problems it presents. I will never use the site again and will probably spend more money for a lawyer than I will gain. It’s just a matter of full disclosure for me and honesty. Be careful when using this site as you can’t trust that BAT or the seller are being forthright. Username on the site Fletch144.

This is a SCAM people. Save your money and try selling on Kijiji Autotrader or anywhere else. These guys charge you 99$ and give no effort on selling the car. They write terrible things about the car. Give 0 effort on selling or attracting buyers. Most of the people on this website will just waste your time on nonsense comments and never bid. Save yourself some headaches and DON'T USE THIS WEBSITE.

I published a car here, they themselves manipulated and falsified photos of the country where I bought my Toyota FZJ80, to say that the car had lowered mileage, calling into question my credibility. When I wanted to check by sending the export certificate with the miles of the car from the shipping company and certificate, they published it only 5 minutes before, so that I could remove the auction and they could get their partners from 1600 Veloce to buy the cars at low prices that they Afterwards they make up and sell more expensively saying that this page is a scam from their partners, they had already told me, but I had a hard time believing it. THEY BLOCKED MY RIGHT TO DEFEND MYSELF. WAIT FOR THE BACK CHARGER OF THIS CHARGE.

To all who read this, do not buy on Bring-A-Trailer auction site, especially from Dave ** in Philadelphia (dkel). BaT allows sellers such as this to blatantly misrepresent the vehicles they are selling, with no recourse, to the point of endangering people’s lives; allows sellers, as it did this one, to ship when they feel like it which may be 3 or 4 weeks after payment is received by their bank with no recourse. The vehicle I bought from dkel at auction dumped the entire contents of the transmission fluid immediately after unloading at delivery and had to be repaired where it sat in my driveway before it could even be pulled into the garage.

Seller misrepresented motorcycle and Bring a Trailer has no recourse to punish the seller. In fact they honor him because he had sold other bikes on the site. It’s simply ‘buyer beware’ there. They do not even have a way to notify future buyers that a seller is a crook. The ad video in the listing was of another look alike bike.

My experience with BaT was awful and I will recommend against anyone using the site in the future. Summary: I had to do 3 rounds of photos after paying for professional photos. It took them 49 days to list the car. The service was awful and slow. They made the car look like crap - terrible seller experience. Details Here: Despite them saying they wanted to list the Nova and me choosing and paying for the professional photo package I had to send more photos just to give them "a sense" of the car. They gave me a reserve with no actual data to back it up when cars sold on the site with information we had at the time were much higher. Going back and forth was terrible because it was basically one message a day with no calling or messaging options. It delayed going live by over a week.

The process in the beginning was fine. The auction specialist will answer you at least once a day once you are assigned one. Typically if your vehicle is worth under $20k they do not let you put a reserve on it. This was not explained well as I thought my car had a reserve. During the last day of the auction, someone figured out where I lived from the pictures and came to my house! It's been very scary. Sleepless nights since this. I've repeatedly asked Bringatrailer to take my auction down, as the buyer never purchased the vehicle and I'm terrified and unsafe. They are unwilling to do so. We've now submitted the information to our Attorney who is pursuing these illegal activities further.

Such a stupid experience. I spent 3 hours listing a super collectible and mint condition motorcycle only to find out the next day that they wouldn't accept it.... They gave no reason even though I know that a thousand people of the general public would be looking to buy this motorcycle. And nowhere on their website does it even say that they have the ability to discriminate without reason.

The auction went smoothly, and I was fortunate to find a kind and understanding seller, which made the long wait for the car more bearable. However, the shipping experience was terrible. Choosing BaT shipping was a mistake, and it will be the first and last time I use their services. Here's what happened: I won the auction on April 30th, and immediately after, the funds for BaT's fee were withdrawn from my bank account. I also purchased their shipping service for around $870 right after the auction, and the payment was withdrawn as well. The next day, I contacted the seller and arranged a wire transfer for the car payment. That's when the nightmare began.

Tried to correct my bid, but the bidding was not monitored by the BAT staff or they ignored it. After they called me the next day due to the failed sale, they admitted they ignored my requests for their own reasons. This all happened before the auction was ended, first I announced I made a mistake, then asked for the bid to be given back to the next highest bidder, but still no response. So then I requested my bid cancelled before the end. Keep in mind, they do not list a phone number or email to contact in the case you need to correct anything. I spent 20 minutes looking for some contact method online before resorting to posting on the auction message board. According to BAT representative, this time lapse was evidence I was not serious, and was cited as why they took no action on my plea for help. Important to note, I had seen them correct bids in the past, but they declined to do so with me.

I tried to list my car with BAT with a reserve and they sent me a e-mail trying to get me to do a auction with (no) reserve so they can guarantee a sale and can get their 5% commission from the buyer and they tried to downgrade the value of the vehicle. That’s not the rules of the sale they have. You should be able to list your car with a reserve but they don’t want honor that. Fraudulent misleading tactics. BE CAREFUL. They have fraudulent sales team.

I am a car enthusiast. I watched this site for a while and decided to list my pristine Mercedes on their site. They denied my entry stating that they don't accept these cars unless they are AMG or V8's. Mine is a Twin Turbo 6 cylinder with the AMG sport package loaded to the hilt. These jokers are out of San Francisco, are woke jerks IMHO. They allow listing old beaters, scooters and skis but decline to accept my submission. I do NOT RECOMMEND THIS SITE TO ANYONE!!

After reading the many reviews pertaining to BaT, it further confirms our own unpleasant experience. See below:

I could not understand them, they never contact me back. There is not any customer service phone that you can reach your agent (Cameron in my case) and they are asking for highest condition. They dictate all aspects of sell, they set the reserve price and most importantly they do not know what they are talking about, in my case Mr ** set the reserve price Soo low, and when I informed him I will not go below my minimum and will not let my car go below my min price which is lower than similar car that they are listing guess what happened he never responded back.

First, I should’ve done some online homework about Bring-A Trailer. Yelp – 2-1/2 Stars out of 5. ConsumerAffairs.com only has 1 and 2-star ratings – no 3, 4, or 5-star ratings. Better Business Bureau – 2 stars out of 5. I have a 1974 VW Thing that has $30K invested in a complete restoration and new motor. It looks terrific, and it is in excellent condition. On the submission of the photos, BaT stated that the reserve be set at $18,500 but stated that it “…would allow for the potential for room to go higher in the auction with competitive bidding.” And “but there's always the chance the bidding goes higher in the auction.”

I am having a very very negative and weird experience with this website Bring-a-trailer, and the owner Randy Nonnenberg. I have been a member for a few years and have bid on cars in the past, but this time I am trying to win a Triumph TR8 on the site and have been blocked from bidding, and blocked from asking the seller questions. The owner has also removed my comments on the tr8 auction and now blocked me from leaving comments. This is bad for the seller if the owner of this site is blocking people he thinks he does not like. And the seller is not getting the highest price.

***SELLERS BEWARE!*** Worst experience I've ever had selling a vehicle. Don't hold your breath on their winning bidders actually paying you. I've had 2 auctions that both were unpaid and they did nothing. It's all about the commission they pull from the buyers credit card at the time of the bid, they don't care after that nor will they ban the buyer from it happening again.

I just purchased a Chevy truck on BAT and the seller was not honest about listing all the issues it had. It arrived with an inoperable gas and temp guage, as well as an oil leak and a gas leak from the gas cap that it came with. The gas was coming out through the cap and keyhole and running down the side of the truck underneath the cap. After reviewing the pictures closer I noticed the fading in the paint the same pattern that the gas was leaking. This leads me to believe that this issue has been ongoing. Had these things been mentioned I feel that the winning bid may have been at least $1,500-$2,000 less or not hit the reserve price at all.

I submitted a fairly rare classic muscle car to go up for sale on Bring-A-Trailer. The next day I received an email stating my vehicle was not accepted, no explanation no valid reason. Now I could understand if my listing was sub-par or I was sketchy on the information but I wasn't I had almost 50 pictures of the car and all of the thousands of dollars in new parts that's coming with it. It is a project car that comes some assembly required but that's why I tried to list it on BRING A TRAILER! It's in the name! So I begin reading consumer reviews with the BBB and elsewhere and they have overwhelmingly bad reviews and horror stories from people who have either used or tried to use their service.

I attempted to list my car for auction with BAT. I completed the application and received an email response suggesting that I lower my reserve citing their experience with similar cars. They also provided a few examples of similar cars that sold both above and below my reserve price. I tried to engage the representative in discussion to understand their rationale. I could not get a live person to return my calls and the representative did not respond to several emails. They are unprofessional and difficult to deal with. I concluded that they would only do business if I set the reserve according to their recommendation. Without an explanation it was impossible for me to move forward. I would not list a car with them.

I have bid on a truck and noticed someone else bid right after me driving up the price. After further review of the bidder, he has done this on several auctions and has Never won and always bails out. After seeing this researched a few others that do this as well. Pure scammers driving up the prices. Will never buy on this site.

All I can say is that this company-BaT, is all about making it difficult to see a vehicle and communicate with the seller. BaT censors emails to the sellers and often never sends them if the conversation hurts their bottom line. They allow and encourage shill bidding and flag anyone who calls them out. If you want to buy a ridiculously priced car without ever getting to see it, this is the place to go. BringATrailer.com- Barrett Jackson for suckers.

What an outrageous thing. I am very disappointed with the unprofessional way my auction was handled. At the last minute, several people showed up on the comment section and started to denigrate my vehicle acting as experts and from that point on nobody else bidded on the car. No BaT representative acted on my behalf or moderate the comments. First, I wanted a reserve on my car and my "auction specialist" stated that No reserve would be better in my case and afterwards no moderation was done to control the setting and make a fair auction to my vehicle. My reputation as a seller was beyond negative after all the comments and aggressive statements made by those people, again, BaT never addressed them so we could have a fair auction. This is worse than eBay bidding system.

BaT Is nothing but a Shameful & desperate attempts by greedy Swindlers who consistently Hide facts which would either Increase, or Lower, the actual value of items for sale by making illegal, Luring, con attempts to exaggerate prices by squelching free & open speech from prospective buyers. In addition, according to the Federal DOJ, they are under investigation for participating in Money Laundering. They, in fact, refuse to allow questions/comments which would prove embarrassing for the seller to answer, thereby driving the price of the items they're auctioning, up. BaT does this because they derive almost 100% of their income from buyers fees based on selling prices.

I put my 1989 944 turbo on their site. The sales person convinced me to sell it without a reserve. IDK why but I did. It went for half of what it was worth. Caution - ALWAYS use a reserve when posting on an auction!

Stay away from their Shipping/Transport group. Their shipping services are about 2x the price of other shipping platforms yet all shipping/hauling platforms have access to the same central booking database of independent haulers. And once you click on contacting them for shipping services, the credit card you entered when you're bidding on a car gets immediately charged for a shipping service you never agreed to the rate on. That is, you're not asked to enter the CVC code, your address or anything - your card gets charged for a shipping rate they set.