Autotrader Reviews 

I listed my truck yesterday and have received about 20 inquiries. ALL of them are fraudsters. After answering their questions, it's the same story: "I'll send you a cashier's check for the full amount and take possession after the check clears". That is a scam. NO legitimate inquiries. Total waste of time.

I have received 18 inquiries for my car and all have been scams. Not one real person. The only real offer I have received is from AutoTrader to buy the car at 1/2 of the listed price (which was below the low end of the suggested range). I’m beginning to think that AT itself is a scam. Completely ineffective at selling my vehicle.

The process was easy to set up and manage.
My only knock would be that I wish there were stronger scammer protections in place. Fake offers to purchase seemingly to lock up the posting for a small amount of time, fake test drive requests, and two aggressive scams to purchase off-site vehicle history reports before they would purchase. Luckily, I consider myself a pretty diligent person and recognized nefarious actions pretty early on, but it was pretty consistent and, to someone lacking patience or scam recognition, it could be cause to abandon selling or to be scammed.

Otherwise, once Autotrader linked me with a legitimate and serious buyer, the process was extremely smooth.

I would advise any seller to complete all of the seller tasks upfront; it makes everything much smoother on the backend.

Made the process a lot easier and helped me feel more confident. 10/10 for the actual sales process

However...... the number of spam/scam messages was insane. Then when I blocked and/or hid them, the messages would still show in my messages, so I would have to filter through them to find the people I was actually speaking with.

The mobile layout could definitely be imporved and made more user friendly.

Do not use this website! I am a legitimate seller with a car that is in good condition and I have received nothing but scams. Not one legitimate source and such a waste of time. BEWARE!

Save time and money. 100% of the contacts I had from Autotrader were scam buyers. It is obvious they are doing nothing to prevent this from happening. I had much better luck selling on Facebook Marketplace. I was highly disappointed with the service of Autotrader.

I paid $50 to list it, and $15 to run an ad. Out of 13 inquiries, all 13 were scams/fraudulent. I understand the platform likely cannot prevent this, but I reported and blocked each one, and then still received contact from multiple of the same ones again. I’m very frustrated I spent $65 for zero value.

I listed it for free on Facebook Marketplace: of 4 inquiries, none were scams, and I sold it on their platform within 1 day of listing.

Very disappointed.

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.

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

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

Autotrader is a scam. Don’t waste your money with them.

I listed my $80,000 luxury vehicle on AutoTrader and paid hundreds extra for top-tier promotion—guaranteed front-page exposure, bold listings, the works.
30 days later? Zero real buyers. Not one.
Instead, my inbox overflowed with transparent scammers peddling fake VIN checks, phishing links, and “cashier’s check” schemes. AutoTrader’s so-called “verified buyers” and “fraud protection”? Nonexistent.
This isn’t just a bad experience—it’s a paid scam trap masquerading as a marketplace. If you value your time, money, and peace of mind, avoid AutoTrader at all costs. Sell privately or through a reputable dealer. Do not waste a dime here.

Unable to sign in. Used my email address, created a password, all I keep getting are codes to my phone and no progression to the advert I wanted to create. Useless data harvesting scam

I bought an ad to sell my car on the private seller exchange. Customer service appeared to be responsive and good however my ad never got a deal badge or indication if my price was high or low like the dealers get. This reduces exposure in my opinion since customers can filter by deal. My ad got two hits the following morning wanting me to buy history reports. I bought the first one thinking this would help the sale as they seemed quite interested. As soon as I sent the report to this person, I got no further communication from them. The second person asked for a different report so I told the person they could see that one I had bought if they wanted. No further communication. My ad went live on 8-13. I have had no questions, inquires or interest otherwise. It seems autotrader is a "has been" place to sell your car.

I’m writing this review as a warning to anyone considering listing their vehicle on AutoTrader.com — **save your money**.

I paid \$50 to post a vehicle, expecting a reputable platform with legitimate buyer interest. What I got instead was a complete waste of time and money. The experience felt more like a scam than a paid service.

Within 24 hours of my listing going live, I received three inquiries. Sounds promising, right? **Wrong.** Two were obvious vehicle history report scams — the kind where they send shady links to steal your credit card info. The third contact was just as suspicious: vague, inconsistent, and full of red flags. Not one felt like a real buyer.

Frustrated, I contacted AutoTrader's customer service about 12 hours after paying. I asked for a refund, given the platform was clearly failing to deliver. Their response? A **partial refund of \$20**, but only if I agreed to **take the listing down**. So let me get this straight — I pay \$50, get hit with scam messages, and then AutoTrader “graciously” gives me \$20 back to walk away? That’s not customer service — that’s a polite ripoff.

There was **zero value** in the listing. I honestly feel like I **paid AutoTrader to be spammed**. Meanwhile, free platforms offer better visibility and more credible leads.

AutoTrader once had a solid reputation, but from my experience, that’s long gone. The site now feels like a ghost town full of bots and scams, and their refund policy seems designed to minimize accountability.

**Bottom line:** I got no real exposure, no serious leads, and absolutely no return on my \$50 — just disappointment and a scam-filled inbox.

I’ll never use AutoTrader again, and I strongly urge others to look elsewhere. If you're selling a car, do yourself a favor and avoid paying to be disappointed.

I responded to an ad on Autotrader in July that turned out to be a scam.
In August, I found identical ads (11 in all, the only difference was the city the Tacoma was supposedly located in.
I reported the fraudulent ads to Autotrader on a Sunday. The following Saturday, I noticed there were 9 of the same identical ad still live on their site.
Be very very very cautious of anything contact you make on Autotrader. They do not take any responsibility for the ads posted on their site and they don't respond when scams are reported.

Be careful before paying for an Autotrader ad. I received all scam messages and lowball offers from dealers. No serious buyers contacted me. I had a much better experience with free listings on Craigslist ($5) and Nextdoor (free)— sold my car in two weeks outside of Autotrader. Save your money.

3 weeks and $160 to advertise a 2010 car that received 3 replies. I should have realised how bad Autopilot is when before posting an advert it offered to sell the car to a local dealer for $5k to $7k. I thought Weird and pushed on. Meanwhile last night I placed car on Marketplace and received 78 enquiry threads between 8pm and 4am and sold the car for $9.5k to the first 7:30am caller with 10 people mad at me. What worries me is Autotrader a genuine source for sales by members of the public or am I being scammed or conned? Sophisticated scam of limiting exposure ? Never again.

I wish I would've read reviews before wasting my money and time on this site. I had over 20 offers on Marketplace in one week and only three offers on AutoTrader and they were ALL SCAMS. Wish they would screen people better. I won't use them again.