Autotrader Reviews 

I paid $50 to run an ad selling my truck and almost within a day or two I was getting 2-3 emails a day asking to buy the truck site unseen with a bank check. The scammer was going to send their technician to load the truck on a trailer in a couple days. Obvious scams all variations on one another.
I contacted Auto Trader to complain and their response was sorry we'll pull the ad and refund you $15. So the Auto Trader business plan seems to be lore folks in with a service they don't provide and refund little to nothing when they don't provide the service. Ridiculous really.

Got scammed big time. I feel for genuine sellers who try to use Autotrader. There are so many scammers on this site that the genuine sellers have got no hope. If you see a low k car on here and the year says something like 2008 but the body of the car is not from 2008 then it's a scam. If you enquire and you get an email from a female who is in the military who "won" the car in a divorce settlement RUN!
Autotrader COULD try and stop this. I'm no expert but just asking for proof of ownership would be a start before the ad went live. So they certainly have to hold some accountability for the scammers using their site.
Genuine sellers would be lucky to get enquiries cos the scammers deals look too good.

SCAM Website (in Australia)
List vehicles twice (once for $17,000 & again for $30,000).
No reply to enquiries.

Autotrader sends fake interest in your car. I’ve seen it several times. They say someone is interested in your car and when you reply you hear nothing. Definitely a scam

WHO READS THE FINE PRINT FIRST???????????????
The worst company to ever deal with - Car on their site I got scammed for $13500.00 called emailed them over 30 times over the last 3 weeks no reply no response - Today I called again tried to explained they asked for the rego of the car in question then hung up called back same thing hung up - I have reported the seller and the USELESS AUTOTRADER to the police - They must be in it with the scammers - THIEFS DO NOT TRUST OR USE THEIR SERVICE
I have been using TradeMe and FB Market place for a very long time never had any issues also 3 weeks ago bought a bike on another online site all smooth. What really bothers me is that only yesterday when I finally got a hold of Autotrader did they then remove the advertisement (2 weeks later) - I still maintain they are in it with the scammers leaving hard working folk out of pocket as no one ever reads the SCAM parts expecting a reputable company to ensure customers are kept safe.
DO NOT TRUST AUTOTRADER is my advice.
STILL NO RESPONSE FROM THEM DESPITE THE REVIEWS - DISGUSTING TO SAY THE LEAST -
ALMOST 3 WEEKS LATER THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING NO CONTACT AT ALL - THIEVES

They've changed their format for listings and now you're just wasting your $. I was selling my Tundra Trail Edition. Their drop down menu only allowed for SR5 or TRD, not what mine is. So I did SR5, added in all the extras my trail has compared to sr5 and they put next to my ad a high price red arrow. For an sr5 yes, for a trail edition I was right at the private sell #....I wrote to them, tried contacting them about this and not once did they reply. Sold it on my own for what I was asking, not one caller from auto trader... SCAM

Avoid.

Uploading 1 picture takes more than 2 minutes. I made the mistake of trying to upload a batch of 27 pictures, which repeatedly crashed my session. Even after leaving my computer on overnight to let Autotrader's slow servers chug long enough to upload my pics, Autotrader couldn't even handle that.

I wrote support and got back automated responses that did not address my situation.

I concur with other reviewers that the only messages I got were from scammers, written in broken English, asking me to contact them on another email. The messages were obviously cut and pasted, asking for info plainly stated in the ad like how much I wanted for the car, to tell them about the car -- clearly automated. Autotrader claims it filters scam messages. I got scam messages, so, no, it doesn't.

Avoid this shady, garbage site. I'm initiating a dispute with my bank to reimburse what Autotrader charged me.

I advertised two cars and sold them on Craigslist for $5 fee each. Autotraders was a TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY as all I got were scam messages. Would never use them again

Purchased ad on AutoTrader. It states the ad will last 1 year or until vehicle sells. After a month with no legitimate offers other than dealers. I went online to update my ad. It said it was deactivated, when I called customer service to renew; I was informed that you have to renew every 30 days or otherwise they will charge for a new ad. Bait and switch. Scam.

Many years ago, I used to love reading through the little Autotrader magazine at the local market. So over the years I began to use them or Cycle Trader, and I had good luck with both. Unfortunately, I placed an ad with Autotrader a couple of weeks ago without bothering to read complaints such as those found here (and there are hundreds of them), and I soon discovered that something is very wrong at Autotrader, and I mean something that needs to be closely examined by authorities such as the Federal Trade Commission. Read the complaints here and take them to heart. Multiply those by hundreds found across the internet that all share common themes and it doesn’t take a genius to see that Autotrader is up to some very questionable practices. If ads were free, that would be one thing (perhaps crooked, but still . . .), but I paid $49 for the privilege of receiving one attempt to con me after another. Perhaps Autotrader is attempting to aid me by sending a variety scam artists after me until I finally realize their true purpose and never see a new scam again. Gee, thanks Autotrader. Actually, I don’t know anything about Trustpilot, but I’m just getting started, so why not begin here? Washington, here I come!
NOTE: The day after I wrote this, Carvana withdrew its offer of $16813 for my car and changed it to $14820. They say it is because I have after-market parts on my car. What parts? Toyota Racing Development (TRD) rear stabilizer bar, muffler, leather steering wheel, and shift knob, all manufactured by Toyota specifically for the Scion xB, which I own. That is about $1500 in extras all made by Toyota’s top engineers and professionally installed. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but I truly believe I have stepped on some powerful toes.

I've listed my car on autotrader.ca and since I've only received scam mail and ponzi phone calls. I'm so disappointed that a national website wouldn't keep this on the forefront of their business. Super crappy deals, pick up your game autotrader!! It's not hard to have an IT department when you make millions a year if the little guys.
Rant over!

I listed my car on Autotrader for a week. I received about 50 messages over the week via the autotrader relay, and another 20-30 on my phone via text message (I had chosen to allow inquiries through text). Not a single one was a real human trying to buy a car. I went through dozens of longer conversations, wasting hours of my time, with scammers who ended up trying to scam me into buying fake VIN reports from specific sites, wanting all my personal info to send me fake certified or cashier checks to have me ship the car to them, people who started non-stop text messaging me trying to get me to mail them the title, changing phone numbers as soon as I could block them. And, there's no way to report the scams to Autotrader! I called them this morning to ask for a refund and to just take my listing down, but their policy is that you can only get a full refund within 48 hours of having the listing up. The scammers were less prevalent in the first 2 days of the ad up, getting worse each day after that, so the point I received 7 messages in 2 hours this morning (1 week after listing). That was the final straw for me. Autotrader simply doesn't care that their platform is 100% scammers. They still made $30 off me, and refuse to do anything other than credit me $20. There's no way to report a scam conversation through their platform, so there's no way for them to improve their fraud detection (if they even care). Worst experience of my car selling, and I am unlikely to ever use them to sell or buy a car in the future. If you value your sanity, do not list your car on here!

So far day 2 of use with many offers but I not one of them is a legitimate offer. The app is flooded with scammers trying to ruin your life. There isn't even a report button, only block, so they can continue to scam. I like to 1 star all platforms that allow scams and all of you should do the same, we have no reason to believe these scammers aren't working for autotrader especially when they are so welcome to stay on the platform. I would not recommend this app to anyone. I am almost positive the scamming part is a bigger money maker for autotrader than the 49 bucks we pay to post our cars. Its time for a different company to become the leading car sales platform, these people need to be exposed. They are doing absolutely nothing to stop scams, in fact they are welcoming it. Having some nonsense page in the footer of the website talking about scams doesn't justify this business tactic.

This website is a total scam and it is run by scammers
i nearly got scammed by a seller and after all complains done to this website the ad is still in there,

2016 Mitsubishi Triton GLX Plus (4X4) MQ MY16 Upgrade $12,700
I would have provided the link but is not allowed

Do not get ripped off by this guy

There are some con artists on here so beware of fake ads. I reported one to Autotrader and THEY DID NOT EVEN RESPOND OR CARE about it as a few days after my report the fake ad is still there!!!
That actually makes Autotrader complicit to the attempted fraud.
The seller I contacted in QLD (car had QLD rego) said the car was in WA as he was in WA working for the Defense Force. RED FLAG - WHY TAKE THE CAR FROM QLD TO WA? Surely you would fly. Very polite and articulate. Gave me a FALSE Dept of Defense ID CARD - signature was nothing like the name and the ID number has been confirmed as "non existent".
Watch out for this scam!
Autotrader - HOW ABOUT GETTING YOUR ACT TOGETHER !!!!!

Check out the response for the con artist -
Sorry for taking so long to reply, I work for the Department of Defence and I was transferred to a new military base in WA. I am providing Deployment Training (Desert Training).
If you are still interested in buying my car, I’m asking $6,788 (I’ve lowered the price because I’m running out of time). The car is Road Worthy and Rego until May 2022. It is very well maintained, always garage kept, excellent condition, runs and sounds 100% perfect with no leaks or noises. Engine starts right up, sounds great and there are no strange noises. No hail damage. I have to sell the car as fast as I can because in three weeks I will be deployed to New Zealand and I’ll stay there for a while. I intend to buy a new one when I get back home.
I also need to know if you have the cash to buy the car, because there are a lot of interested buyers. The car is here with me at the military base but you don’t have to worry about the distance I can bring the car to you on my expenses, so if you're interested, let me know.
Details:
Registration#: 096-WWO , 189.000 Km’s . Rego until May 2022 . Just had it serviced. Mechanically A1
You’ll love the car, I can guarantee you that!

Pretty sure they created a bot to ask if "Is the car still Available". For 30 days straight I got this message every single day and responded. I never got a single response back. Autotrader should be investigated for fraud and prosecuted. The owners should be sent to jail.

Autotrade is a scam itself. I would give them 0 stars if I could. Do not waste your money. With Autotrader, you pay to have scammers contact you. I had placed an ad for a Toyota Tundra. Two weeks passed and the only inquiries were people trying to scam me. I finally got around to placing my add on Facebook for FREE, and it sold in two days. I informed Autotrade of my experience and suggested a refund based on the ad doing nothing for me besides wasting my time. They said sorry. To bad for me I guess. They just want your money.

Hey if your a scammer use Autotrader you’ll be amongst friends. After my recent experience with a scammer on Autotrader there is no way in hell I’d use this company unless I was buying from a licensed local dealer. I notified Autotrader (and ACCC) 4 days ago about the car that was a scam and hey presto it’s still active on the site. Please visit the ACCC and search car scam and you’ll know more than Autotrader.