I advertised my car on Craigslist, and within a few days received a call from this company to sell my car for me. The representative, Anthony Kinkade, said that with their service, I could sell my car more quickly. He said that over 90% of their cars sell within 30 days. He said that their company (AutoTrader Network) has a network of over 25 web sites where my car would be listed. He claimed that people had been looking for cars such as mine in my area, and that he used a Google ad search to see how many times my car had been searched for in my area on Google. He told me he would upload the pictures that I had on Craigslist, but that I should get more pictures of my car and upload them later. So I agreed, and he charged my credit card for $68.99. I received a confirmation email which had the following link in it:
AD LINK: http://autotradernet.com/classifieds/category/323/Mazda/
(I removed the rest so that my personal info isn't on this ad)
Well, it took me about a week to get the pics taken, so when I went to upload them, I realized several things.
1.) The web site was not the Auto Trader that we all know from the magazines at 7-11, which is AutoTrader.com. The representative is fast talking and makes it appear as if they are really the well-known AutoTrader Company, but they're not! The real name of the company is TraderNet, but notice the link above even looks like AutoTrader.com unless you look real close.
2.) The representative said that I would be on 25 different sites. The truth is that they don't have 25 different sites. They pay a fee to upload your information to other obscure site like autabuy.com. If you notice, autabuy.com plays on the fact that people will try to type in autobuy.com and if they typo and spell autabuy.com, then it sends them to this other site. SHADY! So no 25 different sites, just a bunch of obscure garbage! Once you buy TraderNet's service, their system generates an email to supposedly show you what sites you are on, it only listed 10 sites, and several were bogus, like one was the google link for searching for Mazdas like mine. Another was a phony link to a Hyundai dealer which had my car's info and picture, but only linked to the Hyundai dealer's web site. When I tried the dealer link, it didn't link to my car, it just drove you to the dealer's main site.
3.) They weren't interested in getting my car sold. They were only interested in getting my money. A company such as this purposely set up to avoid any direct contact with the outside world. They only have their rep call you and sell you the service, and then they make it impossible for you to get your money back. I sent an email through their web site to customer service, and the person was obstinate that their company is legitimate, and that they have metrics to show that they sell 90% of their cars within 30 days. Just like the other person who posted that she was ripped off by this company, I got the runaround. After I was escalated, I got a call, and that woman said asked me why I didn't call within 24 hours of the time I purchased to get a refund. Well, maybe it took more than 24 hours to realize this is a ripoff. I bought the service to save time. NOT SPEND TIME RESEARCHING TO SEE IF IT WAS A RIPOFF! I now realize that was a mistake.
4.) I was not going to get my car sold through this service. I parked my car with a for sale sign at a busy intersection while I had this ad up. I had 20 calls, and a few legitimate offers with the "For Sale" sign, but lower than I thought I should take, so I held out, thinking that this service was going to bring some good offers. I NEVER RECEIVED ONE SINGLE CALL THROUGH THIS SERVICE, EVEN AFTER A MONTH!
To summarize: STEER CLEAR! Do not use this service! They are a true ripoff! If you've used them and been ripped off, please post a complaint.
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