I’m in the market for a classic convertible to have as a toy. I’ve recently found a car of the year, make, and model I want listed on eautospeed.com. I hadn’t heard of this site before, and I’m not sure if it’s trustworthy. If you have any experience buying a car – or anything else – through them, I’d like hear about it.
The site is a consignment operation. According to the site, sellers list their car/boat/etc., with this company; the company stores the vehicles in their warehouses and lists them on various nationwide classified sites; and the company ships the vehicles to the buyers. Buyers pay eAuto Speed Deals the listed price, and they hold the money for a set period of time (usually 10 days). During that period, the buyer can return the vehicle if it doesn’t meet the buyer’s expectation. Buyers usually aren’t able to go see the vehicle in the warehouse, but the 10-day evaluation period is meant to compensate for this. The seller doesn’t get the money until the evaluation period is up. The company touts this as a way to protect both parties from scams. Sounds good so far.
Things that make me feel good about this company:
I see people discussing it online on various forums, and almost everyone says it works as advertised. A few people report late shipments here and there, but I can’t find anyone on any online forum who reports it as an outright scam. The reviews seem to be genuine and are very positive.
The website is ugly, but it’s an elaborate site, much more well developed than I’d expect from a scam site.
The site has apparently been around since at least 2010, and people have chatted about it on forums since then. If it was an outright scam, I wouldn’t expect it to have lasted that long without people screaming about it on the car forums and such.
Things that trigger my scam detector:
Although the online chatter is positive, there isn’t a lot of it.
Other than some user forums and the site itself, there is remarkably little information about the company online.
The website is hosted in Russia, the admin name and email don’t match, and the admin address doesn’t appear in a Google Maps search.
The car is listed for $3,400 (which includes shipping!). Similar cars of the type and condition described in the ad typically go for over $10,000.
So, I dunno. I want to think it’s a legit site, and I would think if it was a scam running since 2010 there would be online reports of it. On the other hand, the deal looks too good to be true and the site registration screams “scam”.
Anybody here used them or have any other information on them?
I’m not sure if they’re a scam or not, but beware, I’ve been communicating with them
and looking at pictures of a car that they claim is in their Boston, Ma. watrehouse, and asking $22,000. I found the exact same pictures for the car for sale by a private seller in N.C. for $57,000, which is closer to what the actual price should be. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’d be very careful.
Thanks for the feedback, BubbaSpark. I’ve been seeing that same thing with other sites. Same car listed in multiple cities at multiple prices.
I’ve decided the site is a scam. They obviously went to a fair amount of effort to make it look legit, but it’s some kind of fraud. They have posts up one their blog about them expanding to other markets and everything, but I find no mention of them in any news source or anything, I can’t find their alleged CEO mentioned anywhere online, they don’t seem to be on LinkedIn… It’s bogus. I don’t know if it’s outright financial fraud or just dishonest advertising, but it ain’t on the level.
Oh, and welcome to the board!! I hope you stick around. Please post updates on your dealings with them.
I asked if I cold inspect the vehicle in person at their Boston warehouse and they’ve gone silent and I doubt will hear from them again. I wonder if the people who say they’ve had great deals are actually them answering the questions. It looks pretty suspect when they push for payment by gift card. Just my opinion.
Ah, I didn’t realize they wanted payment by gift card! Did they push for that when you started communicating with them? That sounds really suspect. I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess gift card transactions are somehow better for the scammers. They’re effectively cash, whereas I guess credit card transactions might be easier to pull back or something? Did they push you for a specific type of gift card?
Would you be willing to share the communication you got from them here?
I was wondering about the online reviews too. Some of them seem genuine, but I’m really coming around to the conclusion that they’re fake. To the scammers’ credit they put some effort into it. Some of the chatter on car forums are posters coming in to ask about the site, then coming back several days later to say they got the item and were thrilled with it. That shows some planning and organization. And some of the chatter is people saying the item was late but ultimately OK. That, again, is pretty good conning. You don’t want your scam reviews to be 100% glowing. Throwing in some believable, but minor, problems adds to the verisimilitude. They’re apparently bastards, but clever bastards.
I WAS INTERESTED IN A VEHICLE POSTED ON THEIR WEB SITE. THE SITE LOOKS GOOD AND DETAILED BUT IT DIDN’T FEEL RIGHT, YA KNOW WHAT I MEAN, ALMOST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE…WELL IT IS.
EAUTOSPEED ARE A BUNCH OF CROOKS. I SENT IN THE $1000 TO START THE TRANSACTION, RIGHT AWAY THEY WANTED ANOTHER $1300 for the car.
I found this site and read the previous comments and it made me more nervous about this situation…I did some more research about the car I was interested in and found another posting that listed the owners phone number.
eautospeed said that the car was in their warehouse in Mass and would be delivered to me in 10 days…the owner said that the car was in his driveway in calif and was for sale for about 10k more than the Russians wanted for the car that they didn’t have.
So…lesson learned and $1000 lost…DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH EAUTOSPEED!! THEY ARE SIMPLY A BUNCH OF CROOKS PLAYING A GAME ON THE NET.