In June of I decided I was going to attempt to 'exit my lease early' and begun looking for services to advertise my vehicle lease. After doing some research with my lease company, I found out about swapalease.com
Initially, I signed up for the $99 advertisement, which seemed a little expensive, but fairly reasonable, since a website should, 'in theory', match me up with people who are looking to do a short term lease as long as we could work out amicable terms.
After a month or so of advertising on swapalease, I was contacted by Noli Holley of swapalease.com - he was offering me a 'special deal' to get my vehicle MAXIMUM EXPOSURE. Noli made lots of promises, including the ability for people to contact me directly and lots of exposure in the newsletter (which turned out to be electronic and wasn't much of a newsletter in my opinion). He really convinced me that this was going to 'move my vehicle fast'. I bit on this obvious high pressure sales tactic. When I spoke about Mr. Holley's competitor (leasetrader.com) he was critical of the service they provide and he assured me that swapalease was the much better option. I had been considering leasetrader.com at the time to supplement my swapalease ad, but he talked me out of it. It turns out the 'special deal' was another $450 cost on top of the $99, I had already spent, but since Mr. Holley convinced me that this would maximize my inquiries and contacts about the vehicle I was attempting to sell. So, FOOLISHLY, I signed on the 'dotted line'.
About a month later I still had NO inquiries, not even ONE question from one potential buyer. I inquired about this and I was told sometimes it takes longer than others (which I understand to a point). As time marched on, it turned into MONTHS that the Ad was running and still NOTHING, not even one question or inquiry (altho' it 'appeared' people were viewing my ad, but none of which were 'registered users'). To this day (over one year later) I still have not had one registered user look at my ad.
After a few months of NOTHING, I started to question swapalease and they were not even responding to my questions and inquiries. Funny how the communication ends when the sale is made.
Finally, I was FED UP. So I filed a complaint against them with the Cincinnati BBB. This opened a dialog, but the dialog was useless. They simply defended themselves by saying that they were providing the service they said they'd provide and that their are no refunds, and they were unwilling to negotiate. This 'back and forth' correspondence went on for months and nothing happened. The person who I was in contact with was Scot Hall. He was some sort of VP. All he did was defend and did not answer a lot of questions I would pose to him via the BBB. At one point, they removed my custom photo and replaced it with a stock photo. When I inquired about it, they simply did not answer why they removed my custom photo. I have tons of correspondence, 'back and forth', with me asking questions, and Scot Hall simply stating that they provided a service and they would be sticking to their policy of no refunds.
After many months of this back and forth dialog, the Cincinnati BBB simply closed the complaint stating it was 'administratively closed'. As far as I was concerned, the BBB did nothing but act as a messenger, which also aggravated me.
In the 13 months that my AD ran on their website, I only ever got TWO inquiries. And, as it turns out, both of them were from 'out of state' (meaning they didn't reside in my state). As it turns out, my lease company does not allow leases to be transferred 'out of state'. Swapalease knows this, yet they failed to disclose this information to me.
And, finally my AD was closed after 13 months because they said my lease company does not allow leases to be transferred within one year of the lease end date. Swapalease also knows this to be true, but again failed to notify me of this fact when I placed the Ad.
I feel that swapalease.com's sales tactics are deceitful and a lot of information is simply not shared to customers via omission. I spent $550 of my hard earned money for NOTHING.in my opinion, they are not to be trusted.
BUYER BEWARE. Do not be fooled by swapalease.com's sales tactics and empty promises. All that will result is your wallet becoming emptier.
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