Sold to CarBuyerUSA

Signed Deals & Tips
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42

Nice writeup. So despite their completely intentional bait and switching, I’m leaning towards selling to CBUSA anyways since they are still offering the most $$$ and I don’t have to drive 30 minutes to the Autonation dealer. It seems that the actual sales process with them is relatively easy based off your post. Here’s a recap of best offers I’ve received for my '21 Chevy Blazer 1LT, MSRP $33.8k:

  • Carbuyer USA - $34.500
  • Autonation - $34,000
  • GMTV - $33,150
  • Driveway - $33.100
  • CarMax - $33,000
  • ALgo - $31,800
  • Carvana - $31,042
  • Vroom - $31,000
  • Other local dealers - $30-32k
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43

Sounds like you have 2 good choices at least. For reference my inspection was 10/13 and I did the odometer signing on 10/15 and they picked up 10/18. But the 30 minutes away option seems good too. Can’t go wrong.

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44

Still waiting on the Autonation dealer to see if they can match Carbuyer. I just realized that I have a pretty busy weekend so being able to dump off the Blazer and collect my check all in a single day is looking more appealing even if they don’t up their offer the extra $500.

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45

So after some efforts to see if any local dealer would match CarBuyer’s $34.5k offer, still couldn’t do better than the local Autonation dealer’s $34k offer. I managed to get CarBuyer to boost their offer to $34.6k, and decided to sell to them despite the offer reduction after their inspection. Bait and switch or not, they were still the best offer and not having to find time to drive 35-40 minutes 1 way to the Autonation dealer was appealing in the end.

I ended up signing a purchase agreement, then they emailed me a FedEx overnight label, signed the title, and dropped it off at the local Fed Ex office. They said once they receive it, they will pay off my loan balance and wire me the balance, which should be NLT Friday. They said they’ll schedule pickup (should be Monday) once I confirm I received the wired funds and confirmation my loan was paid off.

Overall, I can’t complain too much as I got paid more than I thought I would in the end. If I would give them a rating, I’d give the 4/5.

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46

So closing the loop on my CarBuyer USA (CBUSA) sale experience…I have my money and all that is left is for them to pick up my car.

I put in the details for my 2021 Chevy Blazer in their (sorta childish looking) website (hire someone to do a redesign CBUSA). It gave me a trade-in/selling price of $35.6k and I was like “wut?” because the Blazer had a MSRP of $33.8k and all new '21s had a $2,500 rebate on the hood, making the effective new price $31.3k before TTL. CBUSA’s quote was $1.6k better than anyone else (Carvana, Vroom, CarMax…you name it). That gave me some pause, because I had never heard of CBUSA before and the old saying “if it sounds too good to be true…” was echoing in the back of my mind. However, the reviews I had read on Google decent (4/5, complaints of bait and switch pricing tactics, but no complaints about the actual payoff/pickup process) and since their quote was so much higher, I had to at least see if the offer was indeed legit.

I had to call CBUSA’s main number as I never received an email for any of the quotes I submitted to their website. Turned out there was some snafu with my email in their systems, but Brian N. sorted things out and confirmed that $35.6k was the offer he was seeing in his system. I went ahead and told him I’d like to get an inspection scheduled, which was done by a 3rd party company (I’m in MD, CBUSA is based in GA). A guy from the inspection company came to my house, spent about 25 minutes checking my car out and then he was done. Aside from giving him/taking back the key, I didn’t need to be around while he did his thing.

It seems the guys at CBUSA take the weekends off, as the inspection was done on a Friday but I didn’t get word back about the official offer until the following Monday. A guy named Hal called me and explained that the car was in perfect shape, but the inspector found the car didn’t have a sunroof and had cloth seats instead of leather (there was nowhere in their online quote system to mark no on sunroof and cloth/leather seats, and I definitely didn’t put my Blazer had a sunroof or leather seats). It seems for whatever trim you enter for your car, CBUSA’s system automatically assumes the car has a sunroof and leather seats. The “revised” offer was now $34.5k, or $1.1k less than my initial quote.

At first I was like “WTF, you dirty bait and switchin’ bastards!” (in my head) and I told Hal I was disappointed my initial quote wasn’t honored, and that I would need to think about their new offer. It seems their “appraisal system” limitation made it so I received a quote for a higher spec’ed vehicle, which explains the higher offer. Whether it’s true or not that the overquote was inded due to system limitations, who knows. At best, it really is a limitation with their system, at the worst, it’s a pure bait and switch scheme to get people to start the sales process.

I tried getting local dealers to match CBUSA’s new, lower offer, but the best I could do was an Autonation dealer 30 minutes away @$34k. However, that quote was given by email and there was no guarantee it would be their final offer. Could be I would take 2 hours out of my day only to get bait and switched again by another dealer.

I reached back out to CBUSA (this time I spoke to some other Brian…lots of Brians over there, plus at least 1 Ryan), and haggled them up to $34.6k, which I agreed to. They emailed me a Fedex overnight label for me to send in my signed title, and they also collected my loan info so they could send the payoff to the bank. This all took place on a Wed. I missed the Fedex pickup, so the title was delivered to their office on Friday morning. They sent me a photo of the Fedex express mailer for the loan payoff, and I had the remaining balance wired to my bank account by 5PM on Friday. Once I confirm my bank has received their payoff today, I will finalize pickup of the Blazer for them to take away.

If I had to rate them, I would give 4/5 stars. They need to fix their quote system so the “appraisal limitations” don’t spit out inflated quotes. If your car doesn’t have a sunroof/leather seats, take off at least $1k from whatever quote you get initially. :sweat_smile: The -1 star is for their inflated initial quote and their clownish looking website. But everything else was legit.

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47

Thanks for the detailed review.

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48

Sold my 2021 ram 1500 Laramie to carbuyerusa. Easy one week process and made 10k from the equity.

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50

@Mr.Jeep
Did you have it leased though ally bank? Trying to get rid of mine now. Dot. Need profit though just get rid of it. Thanks.

51

So i had it through ccap. Ally doesn’t allow dealer payoffs anymore so you have to buy it yourself first

52

So I was interested in seeing what happened to my Blazer after CBUSA bought it. They picked it up on the 26 October, and after searching the VIN, found that it was listed at a local dealer auction on the 28th and sold on 2 November. Looks like it was listed for $37,500 at the auction…not sure what the final sale price was though. Carbuyer gave me $34.6k for it.
Looks like their business model is to pick up cars and then quickly flip them at local auctions for a quick profit. Odds are it will pop up in some dealer’s used inventory soon. If it sold at auction for $37.5k, I can only imagine what it’ll be listed for at a used dealership.

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53

Doesn’t anyone know if you get paid back for any extras like rim and tire protection when you sell your lease ?

54

Might get a prorated amount back depending on the contract and state law.

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55

Last week, I sold my 2020 Kia Niro EV EX to CarBuyerUSA. I did not receive me an offer right away as they did not have enough data on this model. I received an offer about one week later by email. Scheduled an inspection two days later, which took about 10-15 mins. I did not get a final offer for 2-3 days, and after a couple of followup texts, I was given a final offer, about 5% less than original offer, but still better than Vroom, Carvana, CarMax and others. Purchase agreement and title was signed mailed to them by FedEx. The next day they wired the money to me and mailed a check to my bank for lien-release. Two days later they scheduled a pickup and someone took my car on truck, and my bank closed my loan. Overall very similar to my experience with Vroom, except they paid me before taking my car.

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56

Got a quote online and it beat every other offer by almost 2K. Confirmed via e-mail and text that this number is correct and will be honored as long as the inspection goes well.

Scheduled inspection via video call. Took about 10 minutes. Got an updated offer later the same day and it was reduced by 2500, making it lower than many other offers.

I was told this happened because the “algorithm” thought my car had sunroof. Of course there is no way to specify what options your car has in the online quote tool. It was a simple bait-and-switch. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

57

Received online quote of “Up to $33,262” on my 2019 Rav4 XLE. I have an offer of $31k from carmax, so going to see what happens with CarBuyer and will report back.

58

Yeah. That’s stupid. What if your car has more options/packages then their “algorithm” thinks? Will they increase the offer? lol

59

Try to schedule a video appraisal. It’s faster and easier. All the best!

60

Apparently the online tool assumes that your car has every possible option and they will verify it during the appraisal.

To be honest, it’s just bait and switch. They will never match the promise that they show online. Other companies are much more transparent.

61

Makes sense why their offers are always highest, if true.

62

I bet even if you have a fully loaded version of a car, they would still come back with a lower offer saying “your color is not in demand” or something lame. Almost guaranteed bait and switch pricing, but the rest of their operation is legit.