Jacob G.
Disappointed, a bit sketch.
Purchased a vehicle via "Buy Now" late one night and put down the security deposit. They called the next morning and I missed the call, but returned the call within 10 minutes, with no answer. Called customer support to see what the call was about and they say that I could not use Buy Now because they needed my permission to buy the vehicle and since I didn't answer the call they couldn't buy it because now the auction is less than an hour away. Mind you this is 10 minutes after the missed call. Is confirming via Buy Now and putting down a $600 deposit not enough confirmation? After this they inform me that they will use my buy now price as a bid in the auction, but need me to stay on the line, I agree and hold. They hang up and I receive no more contact. Confused, I call back an hour and a half later. They tell me the auction still has not started but they will have someone calle when the live auction begins in 45 minutes. Strange that the auction still hadn't started and my buy now was still invalid... I decide that something is not right and decide to retract my option to bid. They agree, but tell me I will have to send an email to customer support to get a refund on security deposit. Mind you I am speaking with the main customer support number. They tell me the only way to get a refund is to email. I have them transfer me to Peter, but no answer. **EDIT** Peter did get back to me and issue a refund. I am not happy with the way this ordeal occurred, but they did provide a refund.
Response from Online Car AuctionsJun 4, 2021
Dear Jacob, Thank you for your review and we are sorry that you did not have an ideal experience when trying to purchase your vehicle. We would like to explain our process so that you can understand why we always call the customer before we execute the Buy Now on their behalf. In the past, when a client hit Buy Now on our site, we would execute the purchase right away without ever having to speak with the client and going over the vehicle with them. However, in the last few years, we have had issues with this process which resulted in changes to our policy. Namely, we would call the client before exercising any Buy Now purchase. The main reason for this policy change is due to many of our clients not being aware of possible issues with the car before purchase (e.g. title pending, registration, damage, condition, etc…). In many instances, our clients do not review the entire vehicle listing page which discusses what type of title they are getting to the car, the possible damage on the vehicle, mileage disclaimers, etc… Since this is a dealer auction, there are no warranties on the cars, no refunds on purchased vehicles. Once the Buy Now is executed with the Auction Clearing House, the car must be paid for. If it is not paid, the client will lose their deposit in order to cover the re-list fee charged by the Auction Clearing House for such unpaid vehicle. To avoid this situation we added a failsafe by which one of our auction specialists calls the customer, goes over the vehicle being purchased (based on the information we received from the Auction Clearing House and listed on our site), explains the purchase and payment process and answers any questions the customer may have. Once that is done and the customer confirms that s/he wants to go ahead with the purchase, we immediately execute the Buy Now. Our customer’s have told us that this new process has made their buying experience much better. In your case, as you mentioned, you executed the Buy Now on the vehicle late in the evening. Our auction specialist called you at 7:30am ET the next morning and a few more times after that to go over the vehicle before completing the purchase. We tried to call you as soon as possible in the morning so as to avoid having the Buy Now disappear at 9am ET (i.e. one hour before the auctions at that location start). It is true that the Auction Clearing House removes the Buy Now option from all cars one hour before the auction begins for that location (not the car specifically, but the location where the car is located). Once that happens, we can still bid on the car (up to your Buy Now amount) as long as you approve this. Sometimes there could be up to 1,000 cars that are going to be auctioned at a given auction location and it could be that the vehicle you are interested in will not go on the auction block for an hour or two. The auction house auctions each vehicle one by one rather than at the same time, so we have to wait until your car is on the line before we can bid. That is why Peter mentioned to you that we would call you back when your car was brought to the line. Ultimately, you were not in agreement with our process and asked for a refund of your deposit, which we did right away (and you kindly mention that above in your review). We are sorry that this process is not ideal for you and we would love to get feedback from you how we can make it better. We have found, however, that many of our other client’s favor this process as it ensures that they know as much as possible about the car before their Buy Now becomes final since they cannot get a refund of the money spent (and can lose their deposit) and there are no warranties on the vehicle purchased. We hope that you would reconsider using our site for your next vehicle purchase and we would be happy to work with you again if you so decide. Best regards, The Auto Auction Mall team

