Hi everybody
Recently, I tried to sell my daily car with Equityhackr/Autoleaseninjas. Given that GM Financial bars third party lease payoffs, I figured Equityhackr would be the perfect option to get out of it.
With that in mind, I entered all of my vehicle’s info into the site. It’s a 2024 Chevy Trax 2RS with about 1,800 miles on it. A few days later, they emailed me with an offer of $24,500. I decided to move forward and accept it. I was then contacted by a gentleman who was pretty nice, and requested my driver’s license, registration, pictures all around the car, etc. All the standard stuff. I happily obliged.
I provided and signed everything they asked me to. After that, I was told I would receive a purchase agreement. It came a few days later, but when it did, I was ready to sign. I opened it up to see that the agreed purchase price would be about $500 less than we originally discussed.
I checked every single document and conversation we had prior to this. Every single time a purchase price was mentioned, the number was $24,500.
Fortunately, $500 won’t change my life and I am very grateful for that. I then received an email from someone named Alberto stating that there are fees associated with terminating my lease that has caused them to “revise their offer”. I emailed them back saying that’s not a great way of going about business, and that nobody should be informed of a last minute amendment on the contract itself. I also mentioned that I had delivered on every single part of the agreement that I was obligated to.
I was then emailed back by another person named Matthew. Matthew wrote a long email that started out nice, but quickly turned condescending. Out of respect for privacy and confidentiality in conversations, I won’t post it. However, throughout this email, Matthew essentially said that the value of the car was not brought down due to any fees, but because market information was limited on a 2024 model.
In addition to this, he said it’s hard to put a number on a car without seeing it in person.
- They don’t have anywhere to bring the vehicle in for an appraisal.
- That would hold water if the difference in value was due to anything related to the vehicle’s condition (ex: tire wear, scratches, stains)
- They can check market value on the car without seeing it in person.
Then, he said that he should be paying around $23,000, but he is giving me $24,000 to avoid putting me in a negative equity situation. He phrased it in a way that sounded like he was doing me a favor by not lowering his offer even more after lowering it the first time.
Maybe I am crazy, but I think that’s an unethical way of doing business. I won’t be selling my vehicle to them. At this point, I’d just rather keep it as a run around car in case anyone in my family needs something to get around with.
Has anyone else had a similar experience, or is this a one off?