Online Car Auctions Reviews 

Reply from Online Car Auctions

Mar 20, 2019

Dear Martin,

Thank you for your comments as we appreciate your feedback. We are sad to hear that you had a negative experience but unfortunately you knew that the title was pending for this vehicle before you asked us to execute the Buy Now on the car.

As you now Auto Auction Mall provides the public (such as yourself) with access to dealer-only car auctions. This is where dealers purchase their inventory to sell to the general public.

All of the cars listed on our site come from various Auction Clearing Houses located in the US. We do not independently inspect the vehicles and rely on the information provided by the Auction Clearing House about the damage, status and title status of each vehicle.

In your case, we went back to the telephone conversation we had with you on February 5, 2019 when you asked us to execute the Buy Now on the vehicle. As you were aware, we recorded the call since the Buy Now authorization was binding. In that recording when the Auction Specialist went over the details of the car before confirming your Buy Now purchase you were clearly told that title on the vehicle was pending. You knew that title for the vehicle was not available at the time the car was purchased and you still authorized us to execute the Buy Now on the car.

In a title pending sale, the Auction Clearing House has 30-45 days to get title to the vehicle from the Seller and then provide that title to us. We continuously followed up with the Auction Clearing House to see if they received the title. We answered all of your calls and made separate calls to the Auction Clearing House to expedite the process as much as possible. Other than this, there is nothing else that we could have done.

We finally received the title for this vehicle on Monday March 18, 2019 from the Auction Clearing House and on March 19, 2019 we called and told you that we were sending the title (via UPS) to you. The title was sent with UPS on March 19, 2019 and we provided you with the tracking number.

At no time did Auto Auction Mall falsely advertise the car. You were aware that the title was pending for this vehicle as the auction specialist informed you on the recorded call when you wanted to purchase this vehicle. We regularly called the auction clearing house to see the status of the title on your vehicle and kept you informed. We could not have done any more than we did.

If there is anything else that we can help you with, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

Auto Auction Mall team.

Reply from Online Car Auctions

Sep 8, 2018

Hi Victor,

Thanks for taking the time to make your review above. We just wanted to clear up any confusion or misunderstanding regarding the price of the car or the amount you paid.

In order to purchase any car on our site, you need to place a deposit to give you Buying Power. The deposit should be 10% of the amount that you wish to spend on the car. For example, if you wish to spend $5,000 on the car you will need to make a deposit of $500. The minimum deposit we accept is $400 and you can spend up $4,000 to purchase a car. The deposit that you place can only be fully refunded if you do not have any outstanding bids or offers, have not used the Buy Now option for a car and have no outstanding balance on your account with Auto Auction Mall. If you successfully purchase a car through Auto Auction Mall, we will apply the deposit you placed towards your car purchase price.

In your case, you found a car that was $625 plus additional fees. The additional fees totaled $809, which included our Auto Auction Mall fee of $299, the documentation fee, bank fee, auction clearing house fee (paid to the auction clearing house) and the wire fee. We then added those up and reduced the total amount owing by the $400 deposit you provided. The result was a balance owing of $1,034. You paid this amount, with thanks.

If you had wanted the $400 refunded to your credit card, you would have needed to wire a total amount $1,434. Once we received that wire amount, we would have then refunded the $400 to your credit card.
We were very clear with you about the deposit process (and that it would be applied to your final purchase price) as well as the car cost and fees.

On our site we discuss fees and the deposit process in the FAQ section. You can also find an estimate of fees in the Fee Calculator which is found on each car listing.

If there is anything else we can clarify or help you out with, please feel free to contact us.

Regards,
Auto Auction Mall Team.

Reply from Online Car Auctions

Apr 26, 2018

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your comments as we appreciate your feedback. We are sad to hear that you had a negative experience.

As you correctly mentioned above, we are an auction broker which provides you access to dealer-only car auctions, something the general public does not generally have access to. This is where dealers purchase their inventory to sell to the general public. In addition, the cars listed on our site are listings directly from the Auction Clearing House (not related or affiliated to Auto Auction Mall in any way) and we just reproduce those same pictures, descriptions, statuses and title-statuses directly on our site. That is why all cars that you purchase through us are sold on an “as-is, where-is” basis (as you correctly mention above) and we cannot (and do not) provide any warranty or guaranty in connection with the car.

You mention that Peter explained this to you and you were aware of this. Further, Peter would have explained to you that the Run & Drive status provided by the Auction Clearing House refers to a check that they did when the car arrived at their facility (i.e. the car was able to turn on and move a few feet forwards and backwards). The Auction Clearing House states that the status of the car (i.e. Run & Drive or any other status) is only provided based on the check they do when the of the car arrives at their location. This is exactly why Peter mentioned to you (and also listed in our Terms of Service) that we cannot guaranty that the car actually Runs & Drives and why we sell it on an as-is basis. You are always welcome to independently inspect the vehicle (for an additional cost charged by independent inspectors who you would deal with separately and not through us) before you bid on or buy the car. You decided that you were fine purchasing the car on the basis of the information provided.

As you know, other than the auction access fee of $299 (which is a flat fee regardless of the price of the vehicle) we do not make any other margin on the car. We do not upcharge or mark-up the price of the vehicle as that is price that the Auction Clearing House is selling the car for. Further, we do not get any commission or payments from the Auction Clearing House for selling their vehicles.

With respect to the delivery and shipping, we do not offer shipping services and do not deliver cars. We do tell our clients (and told you) that you can either arrange shipping yourself or we can help you by putting the car on Central Dispatch (again a third party service which we are not affiliated with nor make any money on). You asked that we help you and we put the car on Central Dispatch at the price you wanted to pay for transport. We cannot guaranty that someone is going to accept the transportation of your car for that price and we are glad you were able to find someone else to do it that you were happy with.

Further, you are correct that the Auction Clearing House charges a storage fee if the car is not picked up with a certain period after payment. This is not an Auto Auction Mall charge. It is a charge from the Auction Clearing House that we pass on to you.

Here at Auto Auction Mall, we take our customer service seriously and we regularly have our customer support contact clients post-sale to confirm that they are happy with their service. In fact, some of the reviews that you find here are as a result of that post-sales contact so they are not “fake” as you mention.

Reply from Online Car Auctions

Jan 2, 2018

Dear Hassan - Thank you for your feedback. We are sorry to hear that you had a negative experience when purchasing your vehicle. As we have responded to you on various other review sites regarding your concerns, we offer the public the ability to purchase cars at dealer only auctions for dealer prices (well below retail). That was the case with the car that you bought.

As mentioned to you before you purchased your car, the information we posted on our site is the information provided by the auction clearing house and we are unable to verify the condition of the car. You were informed that there was damage on the car based on the information provided by the auction clearing house (stated on listing, in our invoice and communicated to you by our representative) and you knew that the reason you won the car for such a low price (almost 50% below retail) was partly due to this damage. Further, we advised you (and all of our clients are welcome) to inspect the car (a service provided by a third party company which we are not affiliated with us for a fee) before bidding on and/or purchasing the car.

Your comment regarding our customer service is unfair. We have many comments from the sites you mention which praise our customer service and many of our clients are very happy with our representatives. We provided you the best service we could, but you were not willing to consider nor accept any of our suggestions.

As you know, we do not work for nor get paid any commission from these auction houses. The only fees we receive are from buyers (i.e. yourself) for giving them access to the auction house. At the end of the day we try to get you the best deals so that you will come back to purchase more cars in the future as our fees are very low considering the big savings the client receive.

In all, we believe that we provided you a good and fair service and you purchased the car that you wanted.