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Vroom Sale [of a model 3] Gone Bad

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SageBrush

REJECT Fascism
May 7, 2015
14,851
21,477
New Mexico
I am not sure where to post this subject, so a Mod should feel free to move it if so inclined

Two parts:
The Vroom part. tl;dr version is that Vroom is grossly incompetent, so much so I expect BK
My personal part is that cancelling the sale involves getting my car title back. I'd like to hear the experience of others here regarding car titles

Part 1: Vroom
Oh boy. I accepted an offer to sell my car to Vroom in late September. The next two weeks were spend calling them daily to correct the electronic contract which only let me sign despite their insistence that both I and my wife sign since we are title owners. It did me no good to point out that the title says Sagebrush OR Ms. Sagebrush. Pick-up day finally arrived, and since the car had been sitting for weeks I took it out for a test drive, and was greeted by an error and loss of power functions. I canceled the pick-up, explained why, and the car was sent in for repair. That turned out to be a $22 ABS sensor but it took 2 weeks to get it. By this point a month had passed since the purchase offer was made so I called Vroom and asked for a re-appraisal since their contract gives them the right to do so if more than 10 days or so pass from offer to when they evaluate the car.

I have now spent a good 20 hours on the phone, spoken with the same number of Vroom reps, and am no closer to getting the car re-appraised. The Vroom issues are complex but boil down to:
  • No ability to work with the same rep. Each call is a new at-home rep
  • Broken phone system. Vroom is unable to transfer a call to a different dept. The call either disconnects or defaults to tier 1 sales.
  • No Vroom rep will transfer to a supervisor, and so far as they know the only way to escalate a problem is to use 'Tier 2.' Tier 2 cannot be contacted during a telephone conversation, and their messaging (presuming it actually happens) is ignored.
  • At least 1/3 times the phone system says everybody is busy and prompts to leave a message. NEVER did anyone call back
  • Each call the rep takes 'action' by using an internal messaging system to notify the 'appraisals Dept' and I am assured that I will be emailed in 30 minutes. Nada, nada, nada, nada ...
The crazy thing is that Vroom performs hundreds if not thousands of e-appraisals each day for potential customers, but getting them to do it for a car they already have the title in hand for, as their contract specifies, has proven impossible.

Part 2: Title
Prior to pick-up, Vroom requires that the car title be amended for the sale and mailed to them. Now that I am cancelling the purchase, Vroom has to return the title to me. I expect them to screw that up as badly as they have everything else, and I anticipate never getting the title back. Is that a problem ? My state lets me order a title copy so I am hoping that the original, if it stays in Vroom hands, will not come back to bite me.
 
Yikes! That sounds like a nightmare. I'm currently in the midst of selling my Ford MME to GiveMeTheVIN in preparation to receive a M3 in Decemberish, and everything has so far gone pretty smoothly. They sent me the paperwork quickly and were informative along the way. Just currently waiting now to be contact by a third party transport to come inspect and pick up the car for them. Granted, it could end up being a protracted process from this point, but so far, so good. And their offer was $4k above Vroom!

So, should you end up getting this all corrected with Vroom, you might give GMTV a try.
 
Yikes, horror story indeed. I just sold a car to CarBuyerUSA and aside from some slight bait and switching on quotes, was a relatively seamless process. I guess your story makes dealing with a local dealer (CarMax, etc) more appealing even if they don't offer quite as much.
For me, the offer from CBUSA was so much higher than local dealers that it was worth the risk to go with them (luckily, it paid off).
 
I don't know where they operate, but I sold my old 3 to Give Me the VIN. They were already the highest bid between Carvana, Vroom, and Carmax, and I talked them up another $500.

The only downside is it's not 100% automated -- you have to talk to a person on the phone to finalize the purchase price, and you go into an office to drop the car and sign the papers. However in some ways this probably prevents some of the problems like OP faced with Vroom. And it's not too onerous. It was maybe a 5 min phone call at the beginning, and we were in and out of the office to close the deal in 10 min.
 
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Maybe it's just my age, but I can't imagine buying or selling a used car via Vroom or Carvana. There's just too much money at stake. However, buying my M3 via Tesla's website was the first ever pleasant experience I've had buying a new car.
I have had many good car buying experiences because I was on the other side of the desk for decades. I have bought a few cars in my 70 years on this planet. I was able to cut through the BS pretty quickly. And yes, there are a few very competent and serious sales people out there. It is the rotten apples that spoil the bunch.

Having said that, my Tesla experience was truly a breath of fresh air. Thirty minutes online to complete the transaction including trade (I paid cash). The delivery took less than ten minutes and I was on my way. Got a little help there from a young, attractive and competent lady. I don't know how the experience could be better.
 
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I don't know where they operate, but I sold my old 3 to Give Me the VIN. They were already the highest bid between Carvana, Vroom, and Carmax, and I talked them up another $500.

The only downside is it's not 100% automated -- you have to talk to a person on the phone to finalize the purchase price, and you go into an office to drop the car and sign the papers. However in some ways this probably prevents some of the problems like OP faced with Vroom. And it's not too onerous. It was maybe a 5 min phone call at the beginning, and we were in and out of the office to close the deal in 10 min.
It really shocked me how much more they were willing to offer than Carvana and Vroom, both of whom were at $50k and GMTV was at $54k. In my case, I'm too remote to drop the car at one of their offices, so I'm having to wait until a transport company takes their request and schedules with me to pick up my car. Until then, I have a check from them for my positive equity that will be made live once the driver calls them and confirms the car's condition, which will happen at the time I meet up with him.
 
It really shocked me how much more they were willing to offer than Carvana and Vroom, both of whom were at $50k and GMTV was at $54k. In my case, I'm too remote to drop the car at one of their offices, so I'm having to wait until a transport company takes their request and schedules with me to pick up my car. Until then, I have a check from them for my positive equity that will be made live once the driver calls them and confirms the car's condition, which will happen at the time I meet up with him.
I believe the low offer I got was from Carvana at $33k and the high was from Vroom for $35k. This for a 2018 LR RWD with 51k miles. GMTV paid $36,500 for it. Not a huge difference, but in line with being about 10 percent higher. I googled my VIN a few days ago and saw it was listed in October on Carvana for $42k.
 
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I believe the low offer I got was from Carvana at $33k and the high was from Vroom for $35k. This for a 2018 LR RWD with 51k miles. GMTV paid $36,500 for it. Not a huge difference, but in line with being about 10 percent higher. I googled my VIN a few days ago and saw it was listed in October on Carvana for $42k.
I've been wondering what GMTV is going to do with my car once they get it. They're paying me $7k more for it than I bought it for new in August. Surely there can't be that much more someone is willing to pay for a standard range MME, right....? Or do they know something about some impending vehicle shortage even worse than we're experiencing now?? lol
 
I think you can always go to your DMV and request another title saying you lost it. Also if there's a lien on the title, they still don't have rights to your car. I recently sold my 21 M3SR+ to CarbuyerUSA. They were the highest offer as one of you mentioned above. I went with it. It's been about 6 days, I mailed them the title, they sent an inspector to inspect the car, knocked down the quote by $1200(but still higher than others), signed papers and looks like I have been funded my equity and my loan is paid off. I'm currently waiting for them to send someone to pick up the car.
 
Sold my 4runner to Vroom - their offer was the highest of Carvana, Carmax, etc., and a few thousand more than I paid for the vehicle new. I docusigned a few things, they fedexed me a POA for the transfer (they're based in TX) and a few days later their carrier picked up the vehicle. A couple days after that they sent a payoff to my lender and deposited the difference in my account via plaid. No shenanigans and pretty painless process. OP: I doubt you'll have much trouble getting your title back if no funds have exchanged hands and the offer is no longer valid.
 
I've been wondering what GMTV is going to do with my car once they get it. They're paying me $7k more for it than I bought it for new in August. Surely there can't be that much more someone is willing to pay for a standard range MME, right....? Or do they know something about some impending vehicle shortage even worse than we're experiencing now?? lol
I sold a $33.8k MSRP Chevy Blazer to CarBuyerUSA recently. After some VIN googling, I found out that 2 days after the picked up the car it was listed for sale at a local auction for $37.5k (they paid me $34.5k for it). 5 days after it was first listed it was marked as sold. Dunno if it fetched the full $37.5k, but if it did, whichever dealer bought is probably gonna try to sell it for at least a couple grand (so like $39-39.5k?) for a $33.8k MSRP car. Insanity!
 
I got an offer from Vroom for my 2018 Model 3 AWD with ~50k miles of $4,000 (no typo, on my side at least). Glad I didn't accept given OP's experience :)

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they sent an inspector to inspect the car, knocked down the quote by $1200(but still higher than others),
This seems like standard practice for CarBuyersUsa based on many people's experience. What did they say was the reason for the $1200 deduction?

I have a 2018 LR RWD and their quote is ~$3k higher than others but it looks like others (Carvana, Vroom, etc.) don't scrutinize the condition nearly as much as them. I have a few repaired chips in windshield, a small amount of curb rash on 2 wheels, tires at 5/32, etc. that I feel like CBU will ding me for.
 
Holy cripes! Has your car been in numerous accidents or something??

Ha, no accidents or anything, not sure what Vroom was smoking. I was just wanting to gauge current value given all the talk on the used car market and thinking maybe I could upgrade to a Performance. I also got quotes from Tesla, Carvana, and GMTV all in the $40-45k range. Not quite worth it to me given I've got acceleration boost and FSD (and in the beta) on the current car. For what it's worth, GMTV seemed to be the most responsive and transparent about the maximum they could come up to (I told them I wasn't really interested unless they could magically come up to $50-55k, lol).