autotrader

[sendmyusername]

Just a little heads up about autotrader.
Advertised my S1 on autotrader.
16 messages
6 went straight to the spam folder (even my standard mail setting knew they were scams)
7 were - I am very interested in your car. What is final price - (standard scam, the follow up is in really bad english from an oceangoing nigerian)
2 were of a very very good standard - it had the autotrader logo, the wee robot, my advert, the guys email link, asking about the car. Looked very official (except having already had emails from autotrader, I knew it was fake, as they don't send the logo or robot thing)
1 was a possible genuine request, but from abroad.
For the price autotrader charge, they should be at least filtering the responses.
They forwarded 6 that went straight into my spam folder, if they had any filter at all, they should have stopped it.
Their standard response was - we have a list of the scams on our website for you to read.
It's not good enough.
It's not protecting their customers.
Quite frankly, it's sh*t.
This message is just to give a heads up about the poor service, I have advertised it at the other usual place and had better responses.

[j2 lot]

Good that you're sharing this info, pretty poor show from Autotrader and will kill their business eventually if they don't do something about it.
I haven't had cause to use AT for a number of years to sell, but last time I did all it elicited were the agency responses wanting a fee to pass my details onto an 'interested buyer'

What I don't get is why the spammers bother, surely there can't be anyone who gets sucked in by their practices after this length of time and all the warnings out there. Or maybe people get so desperate/ greedy that they want it to be true

[sendmyusername]

Honestly, the two that were very well done nearly had me.
If it had been the first response, I might have fallen for it as it looked professional.
Luckily I didn't click on any of the links, or use the help number at the bottom.
Also it was 4 times the price of the other sites too.
Can't put into words how disappointed I was with them.

[highlander]

I think I may have posted earlier regarding Autotrader...wouldn't use them again either...very expensive way to receive spam/virus.We put the Fiat 500 on there a couple of months ago with similar results to above...don't think we even got a reply from AT when it was reported.
AVOID for your sanity!!

[H8OAG]

Contact A/T customer services
Send them emails as evidence

I got a free listing for one month for the last two smokers

Ebay/Gumtree and PH by comparison are relatively vice free

[steviej]

These scammers are scum I agree but it only takes one to make their efforts worthwhile, autotrader seems to be worst for scam buyers and eBay worst for scam sellers, a neighbour of mine recently sent £3000 to buy a jet ski (which would have been worth £5000) which didn't exist through eBay thinking he was covered by eBay if it went wrong ! Unbelievable in my eyes, but he did it and lost all the money.
Would think that a realistically priced / condition Lotus would sell through SE or SELOC to a genuine buyer and save you time, hassle and cost of these websites who are basically only interested in making money from your advert.

[pete]

I got lots of spam from gumtree. Scammers looking to overpay blah blah blah.

[a4drk]

What car are you selling ?
Is it the blue one with black wheels ?

[sendmyusername]

What car are you selling ?
Is it the blue one with black wheels ?

it is a blue one, but not the black wheeled one, my advert has finished on autotrader, i waited until it was finished before posting about the hassles from their site so it would be afull report and not a snapshot of perhaps a bad week.
it is still up on here in the classified, and possibly on pistonheads.
tbh, the only reason i was going to sell was due to the girlfriends new business, but she has just got 2 business grants, so not in a position where is it necessary just now, might have to review that again in the summer, as it makes more sense to have the money available than the car unfortunately.
but left the add up and if it had gone i would have just accepted it.
dreaded every message i got for it... was maybe a bit too honest ....

[a4drk]

I remember - the one with the cream seats & yer mrs sitting in it
lovely car
I quite fancy it......
need to get a loan tho.

David

[sendmyusername]

Autotrader called to see if i'd sold it (so they could charge for a re-insertion if I hadn't)
Told her all my grievances, in a polite but forcefull manner (i never argued or got annoyed, the caller has no say on how they run it)
Apparently they have just started up some new type of spam/scam email filter, which should stop this sort of thing in the last three weeks, so possibly it will be better in future. However, i'd still been getting them right up until my advert finished, so can't say it was very effective.
In their defence they appologised for the service i'd recieved, and even offered to run the advert again for free seeing as i'd had so many spam/scam emails.
So at least they tried to address my issue. (never offered a refund though)
Told her not to bother, and that I wouldn't use their site again, even if it was free. There is nothing worse when you are selling a car/bike, getting an email so you think you may have a potential buyer, only to get yet another ocean going nigerian...
Disappointed and ripped off.
No thanks.
Dear at half their price.
I'd have to say though that the woman on the phone was very good at her job, wish their IT were half as good.
I might have wavered a bit when she offered the free insertion, but i've decided to keep it, and just not eat or use the heating for the next two months instead. It felt good to say no.

Might not feel so good in the middle of january, just as well it's going to be a mild winter this year.