will p.

Avoid Tradecarview at all costs.

Let me preface this by saying that yes, some people have successful, positive experiences with Tradecarview (close family, in fact... several times, no less). On the other hand, yes there are outright scammers - they'll send you the completely wrong car, or no car at all. This case falls somewhere in between, where one unexpected issue/occurrence resulted in us losing almost AUD$1000 without explanation and certainly no car on its way to us. We were left scratching our heads as to why.

We had done all necessary and expected due diligence on the vehicle we were going to purchase. It was only after we had paid for the car and were expecting it to be shipped imminently that the seller told us that it might not comply with road regulations after all. Naturally we were concerned but kept contacting him to try to organise a solution. The car requires electronic stability control, and he didn't think it had it. The photos however show several buttons and dash lights that indicate the presence of ESC (thus we were happy to proceed with the purchase in the first place). We asked him to push the button and show us the photo of the dash when the button was pushed, because if the ESC was simply broken, we'd have it shipped anyway and fix it here. He then proceeded to cancel the transaction with Tradecarview despite no contact with us to inform us of this, citing us as the reason (we were informed by Tradecarview that we would therefore be liable for the US$150 cancellation fee). Needless to say this was a shock to us, as when we had tried to find more information out about this issue, he simply dropped off the radar, never to communicate with us again. If there were no alarm bells before, there was certainly one now. Why, when asked to take a fresh, unique photo of the dash (including the odometer so as to prove that it wasn't just a google images result), did the seller bail? We wonder...

When we took this issue to Tradecarview, they were more than useless. I was told to wait and wait and wait until the seller communicates with us again, and that they would also ask the seller to communicate with us, despite precisely ZERO indication that he was intending to do so. After long enough, we told Tradecarview to cancel the transaction, but we were informed again that as the seller had cited us as the reason for the cancellation, we were liable for a US$150 cancellation fee. I provided abundant evidence of attempts to contact both the seller and Tradecarview to try to rectify the issue but received not so much as a peep from the seller, or anything other than "let's just wait until the seller responds, we appreciate your patience" from Tradecarview. They were not willing to accept that this may have been (read: was) the seller's fault, that something was amiss, and insisted that we had to either wait for the missing seller to respond to us to agree that it was his fault (seriously!), or simply accept liability. Eventually, we relented, and decided that having our money back (less US$150) was better than trying to fight an international battle and having our money basically held at ransom for an indefinite period (until by some divine intervention the seller decided to get in touch with us, apologise, and agree that he would pay US$150 in cancellation fees - like this would ever happen. Herein lies the flaw with their 'money back guarantee'). We told Tradecarview to process the refund and that we agreed to the cancellation fee.

I can't say I was surprised when the refunded amount was approximately US$400 less than it should have been. Just another kick in the teeth. Upon questioning, Tradecarview tried several times to simply chalk it up to 'exchange rates' and 'bank fees'. You can believe me when I say that I kept a very close eye on exchange rates and over the course of this entire debacle, the movement was no more than 1 cent either way, and unless the banks were charging fees of US$100 (at about three points in the transaction), the maths did not stack up. Unfortunately we are now communicating with a brick wall, unwilling to send anything more than passive buck-passing; exchange rates, bank fees, delays, independent banks, exchange rates, bank fees, delays, and so the circle continues.

To sum it up: we sent AUD$10,050 for a vehicle, and got AUD$9,100 back for absolutely nothing. Their "money back guarantee" is nonsense. They are incredibly difficult to deal with should any issue arise, and they will always side with the sellers (unless they are found to be legitimately a scam, but even then you'll still probably be found liable anyway so Tradecarview can keep US$150 or more for YOUR troubles).

I could not be more adamant in imploring anyone that is considering the use of Tradecarview, to simply set $500 cash alight, and be done with any thought that they should use the website. Trust me, it'll be cheaper.