Top 25 Reviews From Legit Bring-A-Trailer Buyers (2024)

To all who read this, do not buy on Bring-A-Trailer auction site, especially from Dave ** in Philadelphia (dkel). BaT allows sellers such as this to blatantly misrepresent the vehicles they are selling, with no recourse, to the point of endangering people’s lives; allows sellers, as it did this one, to ship when they feel like it which may be 3 or 4 weeks after payment is received by their bank with no recourse. The vehicle I bought from dkel at auction dumped the entire contents of the transmission fluid immediately after unloading at delivery and had to be repaired where it sat in my driveway before it could even be pulled into the garage.

My experience with BaT was awful and I will recommend against anyone using the site in the future. Summary: I had to do 3 rounds of photos after paying for professional photos. It took them 49 days to list the car. The service was awful and slow. They made the car look like crap - terrible seller experience. Details Here: Despite them saying they wanted to list the Nova and me choosing and paying for the professional photo package I had to send more photos just to give them "a sense" of the car. They gave me a reserve with no actual data to back it up when cars sold on the site with information we had at the time were much higher. Going back and forth was terrible because it was basically one message a day with no calling or messaging options. It delayed going live by over a week.

It took you three weeks to begin processing the listing after getting the photos and only after I complained. They greatly overexposed the photos making the car look a lot worse than it actually does - this seems to be a buyer friendly tactic but one that sellers should be very aware of so they avoid using your site. I had been warned about this by another seller and he was 100% right. These guys only care about the buyers. Their first step was to ask me to do more work taking photos after I bought the professional package because I DIDN’T WANT TO TAKE PHOTOS and would not do a good job. It was clear that their guy knew what he wanted but not where it was nor what it looked like as he gave me bad directions and then told me that since I couldn’t find it he couldn’t list it with the information.

The manager got on the thread after I complained about making this my problem and recognized I HAD found it but needed the other side of it which I did my best to send. So I had to do MORE pictures. I submitted the car on May 23. The auction went live on July 11. 49 DAYS. I paid for premium service and instead still ended up doing a ton of work to get the car listed. They should have offered to refund all or a portion of my photo package after the 3 requests for more photos but their poor understanding of good service continued. If I could give 0 stars I would.

The auction went smoothly, and I was fortunate to find a kind and understanding seller, which made the long wait for the car more bearable. However, the shipping experience was terrible. Choosing BaT shipping was a mistake, and it will be the first and last time I use their services. Here's what happened: I won the auction on April 30th, and immediately after, the funds for BaT's fee were withdrawn from my bank account. I also purchased their shipping service for around $870 right after the auction, and the payment was withdrawn as well. The next day, I contacted the seller and arranged a wire transfer for the car payment. That's when the nightmare began.

For two days, I received no communication from BaT, so I had to reach out to them myself. When they finally got in touch, I informed them about my planned trip to Europe, scheduled for May 15th. Unfortunately, they ignored this information and didn't contact me until May 12th, completely disregarding the fact that I had already prepared my luggage. It was impossible to expect the car to be delivered from South Carolina to Indiana in just two days, and the risk of me not being there was too high. I returned on May 30th, but BaT hadn't scheduled anything to ensure a prompt delivery of the car. I had to wait until June 8th to finally receive it.

Adding to the frustration, the driver didn't provide me with at least an hour's notice before arriving (I asked for that in the shipping notes). I had to rush to reach the drop-off point, which was not conveniently located since I was working in another area. Despite selecting a large parking lot for an easier transfer to the shipper, the driver parked the car along a busy road instead. Furthermore, BaT had promised me a tracking service for the car's journey from South Carolina to Indiana, but they never provided it. Every aspect of this process went wrong, and I had expected at least some reimbursem*nt for the pain, but nothing happened. I will never go through this again!

Tried to correct my bid, but the bidding was not monitored by the BAT staff or they ignored it. After they called me the next day due to the failed sale, they admitted they ignored my requests for their own reasons. This all happened before the auction was ended, first I announced I made a mistake, then asked for the bid to be given back to the next highest bidder, but still no response. So then I requested my bid cancelled before the end. Keep in mind, they do not list a phone number or email to contact in the case you need to correct anything. I spent 20 minutes looking for some contact method online before resorting to posting on the auction message board. According to BAT representative, this time lapse was evidence I was not serious, and was cited as why they took no action on my plea for help. Important to note, I had seen them correct bids in the past, but they declined to do so with me.