Autotrader is an online company. Based on 60 reviews on TrustPlane, it has an average rating of 1.5 out of 5 stars. Last reviewed February 26, 2026.
Complete scam! The website says list your car for as little as $12, but when you finally get your ad ready… it charges you $49 without showing you so it is too late. After three weeks I had been contacted by four scammers. I also received offers $5000 less than Carmax had offered me. If anyone has ever left a flaming bag of you know what on your porch, it was probably filled with this website because it is total crap.
Chloe from the security team was a star
$49 to list your car...for what? Sifting through the scammers? Fake offers? I regret giving them my money. This has been nothing but a constant "is this a scammer, too?" game. What a joke. FYI, I'm also listed on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist and none of this has happened on those listings. Also, why do they want us to upload our information i.e. driver's license, title to their site? No way!
Something is wrong with Autotrader. Not pleased at all with their set-up. Highly questionable. I would stay away for now.
You hire auto trader to MARKETING your car… then … First-they PUSHED their additional services and the portal web to misled you to add car’s info…IS NOT… is to add more services at cost. Second- auto trader send you LOW OFFER on your car. ( their cookies are set to annoy you and there no access to Denny their offer ONLY to accept it)Third- I wasn’t very happy for the service the 3 day and they want to refund a 20% of what originally they charged. This is having issues with they the first day. (I refused to accept their amount of refund).Autotrader is contracting India for customer service…. It is SUPER HARD to talk to a supervisor. They pushed the service to be taking care by INDIA’s employees. Client’s access to their portal is really limited and there is “USE AUTOTRADER ADDITIONAL SERVICES ALL OVER. “Seeing their behaviors, at this point , without a doubt, autotrader is using the software to manipulate to profit on you one way or the other. At the end got my full refund and I will never use Autotrader for marketing services at all. Low ethics is no good business.
I contacted them today to let them know two running scams on their website. These were vehicles that I was interested in. Contacted the “dealer” who told me they take payment in cash or crypto and ship the vehicle. The dealer address doesn’t look a legitimate business. One was a house the other a run down dealership that apparently had 60-80k cars meanwhile on Google Maps every car there was less than 8k. Autotrader customer service hung up on me offering no resolution or a way to flag the listing.
Autotrader allows ACCEPTED OFFERS with no obligation to buy. Five offers accepted but then "buyer" dissappears. They should charge one dollar to bid to screen against buyers who are insincere.
Horrible company to deal with!!! They take your money, then after everything is completed they require you to take a picture of yourself and a copy of your drivers license and send them to Stripe! I told them I wasn't interested in sending my drivers license to Stripe, a third party unless they purchased Autotrader, and I wanted my money back... but the person on the phone (sounded like a robot, but said she was real) told me their policy was to NOT do any refunds, and since I didn't want to send my personal information to a third party I would not be able to communicate with potential buyers. STRONGLY RECOMMEND RUNNING FROM THIS COMPANY AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!! I now see that they have horrible reviews everywhere... I didn't check previously because I've done lots of business with them in the past, but I will never do business with them again. Contacting our bank now to stop payment on the card.
Very shady!! - lots of information needed AFTER I attempted to place an add and payment came out of my account, lots of requirements (I am NOT sharing a photo my drivers license with some unknown third party) I asked to cancel the add before it ever went live and was told it was to late!! (not even live yet!!) customer service is in India!!! - placing adds as a private seller is a big NOPE!
Listed my car for Sale on Autotrader, and I was able to sell it, this review is for the Messaging app only...The messaging app is awful, it is the only way to communicate with buyersSometimes I did not get any text and email messages when someone messaged me from the app.Other times the messages that I send after logging into the app would not go throughThere were times where I read all the messages in the app and it still shows as unreadI hope you will agree when I say 'timing' is everything when you are trying to sell your vehicle, I lost a couple of buyers because my messages would not go through, or I would not be notified when I got a message from a buyer in the app.The messaging app that they created for communicating with a buyer is the main hurdle for selling your carThey do not allow you to put your phone number in if you want to talk to the buyer directly (as the AI that is monitoring the app deletes it) Lastly my Buyer also mentioned (without me asking him) that the Messaging app is awfulThe one star is because, inspite of all these hurdles, I was able to sell the car (I was ready to take my ad down and sell my car elsewhere).
Will list the same vehicle as you got for a "great price" but when you use their value tool its 50% lower then their "great price" on their ad. Not to mention im not being spammed with emails sometimes twice a day about selling my vehicle. And calls from random dealerships trying to buy it for auto traders price estimate
Waste of $49. Listed our vehicle but it kept deleting all of the vehicle photos except one and that one was cut off so you could only see a part of the photo. Made many attempts to reload the rest of the photos to no avail. Called the help number a number of times but got nothing but a recording saying to call back during regular business hours, but still got the recording during their regular business hours. The only responses to ad were scammers.
Autotrader has went corporate and got greedy with less service and customer care. Posting your car for sale will do nothing but cost you money with zero results. Actually negative results considering its full of scammers trying to get info and get you to buy things like a car report from a vendor who f there choosing which is a scam website. I’m highly disappointed and let down and will tell my story and review until the end of autotrader
I have previously used Autotrader to complete several successful sales. However my latest advert was a waste of my time and money. I felt that the App was forcing me to use the "Private Seller Exchange" (PSX), even though I did not want it, especially with the extra $250 I would've had to pay from the sale. I received just one offer for my car, and wasn't even sure if that was genuine. I got so confused I think I made an offer to buy my own car. I think PSX is a failed attempt to filter out scammers, which will likely filter out all users and kill the site.
Terrible site with inaccurate pricing and cars are not in stock at their recommended dealer
Autotrader is a scam. Don’t waste your money with them.
Just tried to use Autotrader, how it’s changed terrible website confusing lots of categories blocked out. Who ever the management are there days are numbered.
Got Scammers wanting info. Autotrader was not worth my time and money.
Horrifically high prices for no leads, just a large greedy company how do not supply the service they charge for
Such a horrible company and all of the worthless spokes people for the company. Rip em apart
According to TrustPlane, Autotrader has a 1.5/5 rating based on 60 verified reviews as of February 2026. Source: trustplane.app/company/www-autotrader-com
