Cars & BidsReviews of carsandbids.com

Auctioning a car can be a complex process; C&B provides options I (seller) wanted, and straightforward navigation. I feel like I got a better price than if I'd tried to sell it myself, but my car had been babied, and I believe that has value for the discerning buyer.

Cars and Bids markets itself as a professional auction site bringing together car enthusiasts. Be warned that they have horrible customer service as soon as your car gets listed. They went from being very responsive to ignoring my messages, implying they “don’t work 24/7” after not addressing a messaging issue I had. It turns out, C&Bs was blocking messages from getting through to me, only realized why 2 hours before my auction ended, and offered no resolution. They prevented me from having two days to connect with users and facilitate test drives and took no responsibility for the lower price I ended up with.

Scam warning: Do not share any personal information or car details with Cars & Bids. They don’t tell you upfront what they actually need to list your car. They only say “registration, pictures, and a video.” I sent them over 40 photos, my car registration, and all of my personal information. After that, they replied saying, “We’re sorry, you need to hire our photographer for $320.” I told them they were wasting my time because I already provided detailed photos. It’s clear they try to sell you a paid package, and meanwhile they keep all your information to use however they want. Don’t fall for this trick.

I can echo many of the terrible experiences documented in other reviews. Cars & Bids provides ZERO protection for buyers, including gross misrepresentation of the working condition of cars. I bid on and won the auction for a used Porsche Cayenne SUV. The vehicle summary indicated there were no functional or mechanical issues with the vehicle. When the vehicle was delivered, I wanted to drive it around, but very quickly realized there were seven error codes on the dash display. I drove it for about one mile before the air suspension completely collapsed in the front and the front wheels were riding on the wheel hub, which made it impossible to operate. After having it towed to a Porsche dealer, I paid to have a full diagnostic done. The dealer indicated that there were three major issues with the car and another six minor issues. Just the major issues alone would cost approximately $12k to fix, which is more than the car cost in the first place. I ended up having to sell the car at a $9k loss without getting any use out of it. I followed up with C&B throughout this process and the only thing they did was refund my C&B commission payment and supposedly ban the user from using the website. It is simply not worth the risk, especially to buy from a private seller where the buyer's recourse is basically zero.

If you are thinking about buying a vehicle on Cars & Bids, I highly recommend looking elsewhere. I recently won an auction, completed all the necessary paperwork, and finalized my financing, only for the seller to flat-out refuse to ship the car. Despite holding up my end of the deal, Cars & Bids offered absolutely zero buyer protection. It has become painfully clear that this company only cares about collecting their commission. Once they have their fee, you are completely on your own—even if the car is blatantly misrepresented or stated incorrectly in the listing. Cars & Bids is incredibly good at isolating themselves from culpability while actively censoring anything that might make them look bad. It seems like a brilliant business model for them: collect millions in fees with absolutely zero legal exposure, while allowing both buyers and sellers to get screwed along the way. To make matters worse, when I tried to get help with my situation, support completely ignored their own formal "Terms of Use" and "Auction Agreement." Instead, they pointed to a small, obscure bullet point hidden in their FAQs stating that "buyers are expected to complete the transaction within 7 days" just to wash their hands of the problem. I would guess the vast majority of sales on their platform are not fully completed within 7 days. In fact, I know this to be true because that was exactly the case when I sold a car through them a few years ago, and they had no issue with it then. Save yourself the headache and the money. They will gladly take your fee and leave you to fend for yourself when things go wrong.

I really like the interface, it made shopping for a car fun

Cars sell at their value. I got 39k offer from a dealer and sold my car for 47.777$ . Customer service is fast and helpfull. Safe pay is safe. I am super happy with cars and bids and definitely will work again

My Cars & Bids experience was wonderful. I never even heard of them before but I tried to sell my car for a while and got seriously low-balled by online and real-world dealers and had nothing but spam on Autotrade. The Cars &Bids process certainly needed some work - mainly on getting good photos of the car (which I could but didn’t want to pay for), but their staff walked me through the exact photos I needed, sorted good photos from bad, gathered all the documents needed and did a lot of handholding to get the auction in the best place possible. The auction itself was exciting and the car sold for 40% more than any dealer offered and once sold their escrow service took care of the title transfer and payment completely seamlessly. Just a super experience all around for anyone who is at least slightly enthusiastic about cars!