[asit.kulkarni93]

Originally Posted by adisan

Thanks for sharing the other perspective. This is very useful, especially because it comes from someone who had been inside the system for fairly long.

When I sold my car a few years back, I preferred to wait for 2-3 months to find the right individual buyer. Many posts in this forum had warned about the ownership transfer being the critical factor, and why it might become a challenge if selling to a used car dealer (aggregators were not yet popular at that time).

Good decision there. Paperwork is critical in the whole process.

Originally Posted by Varun_HexaGuy

Being in this field for quite sometime now, I know how dirty this business actually is. I've burnt my hands with all the aggregators in one way or another. Now I've given up my dealer subscriptions of the same simply because of all the reasons stated above.

There was this one time I'd acquired a Hyundai i10 from Cars24. Car was given a 4-star rating in all areas. Looked clean in pics too. Won the bid and closed the deal. Two days later, car was delivered at my place. The first thing I went onto see was the entire front end was restructured. The job done was pathetic as well. Car was involved in a major accident. The exterior report has a four and they didn't upload pics of redone suspension towers and badly repaired aprons. Drove the car for a kilometre. Realised the front suspension needs work. None of these were mentioned in the inspection report. Long story short, after a week of back and forth, car was taken back and money was refunded.

Coming to the point of paperwork, I've not seen anyone as lax as these blokes at work. I'd bought another i10 at a different point of time. Car was clean this time around. But they didn't really bother to cross check the paperwork. When I received the car, they simply dumped all the paperwork with me and left. Although all the transfer forms were signed at appropriate places, these idiots didn't bother to cross check the owner's signature from the RC card and the transfer forms. The seller had signed the transfer forms in English while the signature on his RC card had a signature in Telugu. Something as basic as cross verifying the documentation can't be done right by these guys. This didn't end here. The RC smart card delivered to me was a duplicate. It was a card, but not a smart card with a chip. RTO won't accept this during the ownership transfer. Again, after endless conversations with the appropriate authorities, the aggregator offered to buy the car back. I gladly gave it back as I was in no mood to run circles around the RTO for sorting out the paperwork.

Not only that, they've royally screwed up the market. People quote insane figures for their used cars that sometimes it makes more sense to buy new than buy used.

Also, make hay while the sun is still shining bright. Those who are on a lookout to sell their cars, please give these aggregators a try. They sometimes offer a ridiculously good price that no individual buyer in the market would offer. They only make sense in cases like these. Rest, they're no different. All well kitted up on the outside, dysfunctional and unorganised to core on the inside.

I had a similar experience. The refund doesn't help the case, you are basically in loss as your capital is stuck. Missed opportunity by these aggregators to actually bring in the much needed change.

Originally Posted by Raghu M

What an informative post. Thank you. Covid was just a coincidence and these players used it to their advantage. And the market had the chip shortage which increased the waiting periods. I sometimes feel surprised at the many methods used by these people to beat the system. I think buying a new car or taking a used car from a known source is best.

Sometimes it definitely makes sense to get a new car. On the contrary, best used cars are those which aren't market favourites. A used ertiga or swift or Dzire are terribly priced. At the same time, A used Jazz or Etios or Figo make a very strong case.

Originally Posted by sandeepsc

Thanks for sharing this important information. This is an eye opening information for all who are lured by their advertisement. These advertisements claim to give best value for your car. It seems that these so called organized aggregators have also adopted cheating policy. My old Verna was exchanged with Tata dealer who eventually sold and transferred the car to new buyer’s name within one month.

You are very lucky in this regard. The best value online is given for an ideal car. Going by that logic, they should sell 0 kms done used cars.

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

Thank you for such an informative post!

Threads like this cement my opinion of not buying a used car ever. Other than paperwork/legalities/condition of the car, you just can never tell how the previous owner used the car - read abused. Though I understand a neatly used car offers good value, I'm just not ready to deal with any unwanted headaches later in the ownership!

Everything comes with a trade off. News cars come at a price and used cars come at additional efforts. Headache only if thorough checkup isn't done.

Originally Posted by raksrules

Thank you so much for this thread. As a newbie who does not understand and trust used cars, I was considering spinny and such seeing their fancy websites and claims. I already have booked a brand new car but still was window shopping to see what deals were around.

Now with this thread, I am more convinced not to go with used cars unless it from a known individual (not dealer). I am also convinced that all dealers do odometer tampering.

Not all dealers indulge in meter tampering. This reminds me of an interesting incident. A pune based consultant firm wanted to sell off their Innova and Fiesta. Both the cars had done well over 150k KMs. I decided to pick up the cars as they were well kept. Now a 180k kms done Innova isn't very difficult to sell but the Fiesta at 165k KM seemed dicey. The Fiesta was sold off before the Innova primarily because of its conditions. I had sold cars done as low as 3k kms to cars done as high as 270k KMs. The right buyer is always available for the right car. I know plenty of dealers in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana who do not indulge in such practices. Meter tampering is majorly done on diesel vehicles due to high usage. It's pure karma. Some dealers sold crappy cars done less than 50k KMs as pure gold which is biting them back now.

[raksrules]

Originally Posted by asit.kulkarni93

Not all dealers indulge in meter tampering.

May be not but something that happened with us further cemented my decision to not go for used car. My brother sold his 120kms done Honda City to a dealer and the same car was being sold on OLX in less than a week being advertised as 80K run.

[yogeshnagpal]

Thanks for starting this thread Asit.

I'm cognizant of the fact that C24 is an advertiser on the forum

I am/was a registered channel partner on Cars24. Have had multiple bad experiences with the car buying process from Cars 24.

Biggest joke, I had picked up a W211 E280 CDI, with the car scoring 4.5-5, on all parameters. When the car came to me, the car was not fit to even be "0" stars, with broken trims, AC not working, sunroof not working, errors on console, PW not working, and random noises from the Transmission.

What sort of inspection these guys get into, I really do not know. I had to reach out to the city head o get the refund process expedited.

In an earlier case, a Honda Amaze with a "REPLACED" roof was passed on to me as a car with a "REPAIRED" roof. I have bills from the ASC which state that almost 1.4 lacs was spent by the previous owner to get the roof replaced due to a fallen tree. However, C24 completely washed off their hands from this incident.


In a third case, an E90 320d with a multitude of errors passed off as a 4-5 star rated car.

To top it all, today they blocked my account, stating that there has been over 50% return rate (obviously returns were due to inspection misses).

On top of that, their rep actually spoke to me like a roadside loafer (have call recordings with this dude).

I've actually shot an e-mail to the founding team and the Sequoia investor team. Let's see if they act on it.

To my understanding, the free flow of funds have made them thick skinned and it will be of no use!


PS :: I have pics of the car that I returned and recordings with the c24 rep. Just to protect the sanctity and identity of the individuals and businesses, I'm not posting it on the forum.


The above, and more are my experiences as a Channel partner.

Let me now come to experiences as a customer-

1. I sold my Honda Accord 2007, 2.4AT to Cars24, on Jan 1, 2020. We are on Jan 14, 2022 today and the car still hasn't been transferred out from my name. I'm actually going to get it blacklisted by sending a letter to the RTO now.

Again, I have my letter of sale to C24 and the details of RTO fines that have accumulated post selling the car. Can produce these on demand.

2. Cars24 has now started online car buying (B2C) biz. Just for kicks, I booked 3 cars to check out their competency in this regard. To my horror, cars that were 5/5 didn't deserve to be even 2/5. I had booked the following cars-

1. Renault Duster
2. Nissan Terrano
3. Skoda Yeti

Needles to say, I have the booking history on my mobile app and can prove this very well.


Cheers,
Yogesh.

[vgaquarius]

A highly comprehensive and stark naked revelation of the backend operations of aggregators I must say and I would like to share my experience too! I drive a 2011 VW Polo 1.2 TDi Highline which used to come without steering mounted audio controls, climatronic air-conditioning, one-touch up down, comfort/ anti-pinch functions, 4k OPS etc. All these features were omitted even in the highest trims. Coming across multiple retrofits possible in the Polo, I wasn't convinced to shed much leaves from my money plant that too on an old car which I can't drive after 4 years. So, the bug of finding a preowned Diesel Polo bit me and the search began.

All I observed was that these companies manage to make the exteriors and the interiors of a car look speckless so as to make the customer feel that it's a new car experience despite of being an old car. I selected a 2014 Candy White Polo 1.5 TDi online via one of these aggregators, (won't list the name) and paid them a visit to see the car in flesh. They had their showroom in XY Sector, Chandigarh and claimed that the car is with the owner at his home and they asked me to reach that location.

The first question, don't people leave the cars with these aggregators?

Second, why would the company officials send me the WhatsApp location in front of me, delete it after 5 minutes, and then ask me to reach there in an hour?


Thankfully, I had clicked on the location link before they deleted it and I pinned the location. To my surprise, it turned out to be that empty road in Manimajra where repaired vehicles are tested by mechanics. It seemed pretty clear by then that they must have mistakenly shared the location which a trusted mechanic of theirs sent them.

Those who don't know, Manimajra Motor Market is one of the biggest car and truck repair market for the people from Himachal Pradesh and the Tricity. All original, repackaged, refurbished spare parts available dirt cheap, paintwork being carried out on high-end cars in open for pennies, no one giving a damn to the quality of work and focusing on volume.

I decided to speed up to the location and ended up spotting the car as I had shortlisted an HP registered car with a VIP number. I just parked my car a few metres away, sat in my seat and begun watching the show like a movie as I had already lost interest after having seen the location of the vehicle. I had an orange with me and begun enjoying the site while peeling it, just thanking god for saving me from a fraud. After 10 minutes of sitting there, a guy who was working on that car came to my window and asked me, "Bouji kya kaam Karana hai?" to which I responded "Purani lagti hai 2011 wali, 2014 toh bomb hai."

He offered me to have a look at that car they were working on and I went ahead to observe closely.


There were a total of 5 mechanics working on the car:

1. Replacing the driver door lock cylinder: Okay, cool. They had the lock cylinders immersed in diesel for lubrication and cleaning, damn.
   
   
2. Opening up the suspension of the vehicle: The factory fitted suspension struts, mountings etc. were all in very good shape but were being replaced with aftermarket stuff including the engine mounts and transmission pendulum mount
   
   
3. Opening the door cards and exchanging original VW speakers with something chinese and he ended up wildly splicing the factory wiring and drilling more than 6 holes to fit the speaker as the holes mismatched
   
   
4. Mixing Fena surf in a bucket full of water and trying to was the car inside out: Fena on roofliner, Fena on the dashboard, Fena on the seats, Fena on the carpeting and spraying Fena on the engine bay! Fena hi lena!
   
   
5. Sitting on a bench with 2 instrument clusters, 2 BCMs and 4 keys in hand waiting for the drenched car to dry up so that he could fit the parts. I don't have much clue about other cars but in most VAG cars, the immobiliser is integrated in the instrument cluster of the vehicle and the Polo was no different. The odometer reading of the vehicle was claimed to be 11,000 kms on the website (January 2014- October 2021 mileage).

The guy waiting to throw in the new BCM and instrument cluster was their 'Ustaad' and to my shock he asked, "Upgrade Karna hai? Chotu jo sahab ko pasand aaye nikaal gaadi se. Sahab chimta (steering rack) aur shock lagva lo, *Friss part nikala hu bouji*." He offered me a full upgrade package from 2011 to 2014 in 50k and I started involving him into a discussion to know where the car came from.

By the time he was about to confirm me the name of the showroom who gave him this car, the guys whom I met at the showroom turned up and the reaction on their face was priceless. They were literally scratching their heads as I could see through the windscreen of their car. One of them stepped down from the car and he had to audacity to accuse me for invading into their privacy and internal affairs to which I bluntly reacted and said, "I followed the location You sent me! What happened? I thought the owner would be coming here. Damn, is this the car You wanted to show me?"

To this, he wasn't in a condition to react and was all red in embarrassment.

I have read multiple threads where many teamBHPians have mentioned about the benefits of buying a preowned car in warranty which surely are beneficial in terms of the VFM quotient and peace of mind but I don't think I would ever be able to gather the courage to ever buy a preowned car in future if it's from a dealership. I'll get a thorough check done for the originality of the parts even if purchasing directly from an owner. As it is, I was carrying my laptop and VCDS cable along that day but God had other plans.

Drive safe.
Vaibhav

Originally Posted by asit.kulkarni93

8. I had made it very clear that I am not paying for any car till I verify the history. This created a big issue and I was told to work like other dealers. Eventually this was agreed to I eventually found a clause in the agreement mentioning no return of vehicle if found meter tampered. I refused to sign and finally a mail was sent mentioning return of vehicle if it hasn't left the yard and if there was an issue found in the history.

[Hayek]

Interesting thread. Must say I had a good experience with Cars 24 while selling my Vento. Got a decent price (30% more than what the VW dealer offered as a buyback against my new Tiguan), got a guarantee that the RC transfer will take place (not sure how enforceable that was) but also got the RC transfer done within 60 days.

Frankly, the Supreme Court order putting the onus on the registered owner even when a dealer has signed a form taking responsibility for cars is beyond ridiculous - a classic example of high and mighty judges who have never done any real work in life opining from an Ivory Tower. Makes selling a car very risky - and personally, makes me more willing to go with the online aggregators than a small dealer. Selling to an individual is not easy at all - I tried that (including through Team BHP) for my Superb but finally gave up and sold to a dealer who approached me based on an Ad.

[sheelapratosh]

Interesting thread. I sold my XUV500 to Cars24 and I had absolutely no issues whatsoever from contacting them until the RC was transferred.

As to why the used car prices go up - whether it’s due to the aggregators or otherwise - it’s an economics question. Once demand and supply even out, correct pricing will surface. I too wanted to buy a used car for my mom and then went ahead with a new car as the price difference wasn’t worth it.

I am intrigued by one thing though. Some of the posts in this thread look like confession to me.

[asit.kulkarni93]

Originally Posted by yogeshnagpal

Thanks for starting this thread Asit.

I'm cognizant of the fact that C24 is an advertiser on the forum

I am/was a registered channel partner on Cars24. Have had multiple bad experiences with the car buying process from Cars 24.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I just checked and realised about C24 being an advertiser. Well they should have known, They can not fool every dealer by saying it’s people from the smaller towns who are picking up vehicles at a high price. That story was stupid even when they had just started circulating it. It may have happened once in a blue moon but to hide the fake bids saying this LOL. I remember back in the day the used car Valuators at new car dealerships were well learned and experienced folks not jokers who would rate things randomly. I lost hopes from these people when they said “Rusting toh normal hai sir” when the whole wheel well of an i20 was rusted.

Originally Posted by vgaquarius

I have read multiple threads where many teamBHPians have mentioned about the benefits of buying a preowned car in warranty which surely are beneficial in terms of the VFM quotient and peace of mind but I don't think I would ever be able to gather the courage to ever buy a preowned car in future if it's from a dealership. I'll get a thorough check done for the originality of the parts even if purchasing directly from an owner. As it is, I was carrying my laptop and VCDS cable along that day but God had other plans.

Drive safe.
Vaibhav

This isn’t surprising. The FNG where some of these aggregators get their cars repaired have shared even worse experiences. I will take the appropriate permission and ask them to share it directly here. Whenever buying a used car, please get it thoroughly checked. It makes a lot of difference.

Originally Posted by Hayek

Interesting thread. Must say I had a good experience with Cars 24 while selling my Vento. Got a decent price (30% more than what the VW dealer offered as a buyback against my new Tiguan), got a guarantee that the RC transfer will take place (not sure how enforceable that was). Makes selling a car very risky - and personally, makes me more willing to go with the online aggregators than a small dealer. Selling to an individual is not easy at all - I tried that (including through Team BHP) for my Superb but finally gave up and sold to a dealer who approached me based on an Ad.

Glad you had a good experience. You were really lucky that the car was transferred on time. No guarantee works. You will find plenty of experiences on the forum itself that the vehicle wasn’t transferred even after 2-3 years.

Big or small dealer doesn’t matter in the used car business. This business only runs on trust. There is a high probability of you getting cheated by a big dealer than a small dealer. Big used car dealerships are normally involved in bulk used car purchases. During bulk purchases, they do not have an option of rejecting the bad cars. I have worked with plenty of small and big dealers across Maharashtra and some of the small dealers actually do better business than the big ones without compromising on quality. My point of starting this thread was highlighting the fact that these aggregators are just like a shady dealer who can speak English, have posh offices & carry tabs with them. Your post would be on a different if your vento would not have been transferred. It was pure luck that you were saved from the unnecessary hassle. Cars literally end up in any city and you can’t control that. With an individual buyer or a local dealer, you can atleast reach out to them.

Originally Posted by sheelapratosh

Interesting thread. I sold my XUV500 to Cars24 and I had absolutely no issues whatsoever from contacting them until the RC was transferred.

As to why the used car prices go up - whether it’s due to the aggregators or otherwise - it’s an economics question. Once demand and supply even out, correct pricing will surface. I too wanted to buy a used car for my mom and then went ahead with a new car as the price difference wasn’t worth it.

I am intrigued by one thing though. Some of the posts in this thread look like confession to me.

Glad you had a good experience and thank your stars that the car was sold off and transferred on time. Even when Demand and supply were evened out(just before the pandemic) the prices weren’t any sane. Most sellers were getting the market price. Buyers were paying unnecessary premium.

I would like to know which post on this thread is a confession? Most experiences mentioned portray the goof ups by the aggregator. Not a lot of people speak up from the other side because they do not have the right platform. There is a reason why the illusion around same needs to be busted.

[androdev]

These aggregators are a great boon for sellers. Zero effort of my part as someone comes to inspect the car at my home for free. I just give them the key and few documents and go back to minding my own business. They get back with a price and if you are reasonable with your expectations, the deal gets done and the money comes to your account. You get an agreement of sorts where you are obligated to co-operate with the transfer and they will agree to take over the liabilities after handover. As a seller, this is pretty much the best case scenario for me.

However, they offer nothing better to the buyer. Other than professional/polished interactions and software platform, you are getting exactly the same cars that were earlier sold by regular dealers. Garbage in, garbage out. Exactly as things were before these aggregators came into the market. Most likely at a higher price than earlier.

Great for seller, bad for buyer.

[magic.dwarf]

Being someone who was spending quite a lot of time on these dealers sites and apps in the last few months, this thread is an eye opener. Recently i had visited a preowned car showroom to check out a Tata Hexa whose ad was seen on olx. Coincidentally the same car was listed on facebook marketplace a few weeks back, and i had contacted the owner personally since i was seriously interested in the car. I could see that it was the same car on the showroom due to some stickers which was on the car which i remembered from the pics sent to me by the owner. Just as some members pointed out and from my limited experience most of the guys aren't much knowledgeable about the cars in these kind of places. They had mentioned a price and was totally against having any kind of negotiations about the price and the attitude was very arrogant. Now the problem is i like the particular vehicle. I have the owners contact details. But since i am unaware of the actual market price of the particular car i dont have an option of a negotiation with the owner directly. The owner might have had some agreements with the seller and i guess there will be some problems if i go with dealing with the owner himself as these showroom guys will try and get their commission even if they have actually nothing to do with the sale of the particular vehicle.

[SinghShu]

Interesting and an insightful thread. I think these aggregators are really useful for people who don’t want to get into the ‘hassles’ of dealing with paper work. I’ve too had my brother sell his car via one of the aggregator, with primary reason being the entire thing can be concluded online and over phone calls. This translates to minimal distraction from office which is I believe one of the major reason for their popularity in the urban office going junta.
Buying from them is all together a different beast. Their n number of certificates, points checked lure the customers. Another major angle is most of us have heard some stories about shady car dealers in our cities and therefore it makes it difficult to part with hard earned money for a car bought from them. These online tech based aggregator with their branding and funding surely invoke some trust.

However reading through these posts is an eye opener and would make people (at least here on tbhp) question those unrealistic offerings.

[Lalvaz]

Originally Posted by asit.kulkarni93

Hello,

I see the forum flooded since the last 2 days on reviews of spinny, cars24, olx autos(earlier cashmycar) & gaadi.com. I just thought of sharing my experience with some of these aggregators. I was an active channel partner between 2016 to 2020 with many of them. I can tell you the other side of the story now that I have withdrawn from all of their subscriptions and limited my used car business to a help to close friends and family.


The working model for all of them are more or less the same. A approaches B to sell their car. B has an auction portal where the car is listed after inspection. C bids for the car along with other dealers and the highest bid is offered to A. Upon closing the transaction, C eventually sells the car to D.

Now how does it make a difference-

1. Fancy offices, tablets, personalised merchandise & educated staff costs money. Investors money can't sustain them for long. Fake bids are put during the auctions to jack up the prices. The seller gets the same price but the buyer pays atleast 20% more because of this nonsense. Previously the used car market was running on a 10-12% margin. Today the difference in some cases is as high as 35%.

Did not understand the following points:
1) Why do you call it a "fake bid" ? Is it not a bid put in by a genuine dealer? Will he back out of the deal if his bid is the winning bid?
2) Who puts in these "fake bids"?
3) What's the benefit to the dealers to jack up the price?
4) If the buying price is being jacked up, then how can the seller get the same price?
5) You say investor money can't sustain them for long. Who are these investors and why do you feel they're unable to sustain it, if these aggregator sites have been in business since 2016 till now, isn't it a sustainable business?

Originally Posted by asit.kulkarni93

2. You really think covid has caused a sudden spike in demand around used cars? This demand was created by these aggregators. How on earth is it justified to pay 4+ lakhs for a 8 year old swift diesel? These hot sellers remain unsold with dealers for month if they don't find a bakra. These cars are re-auctioned and another bakra dealer gets hold off it. Aggregator earns during this process too. Finally the car is sold off either to a bakra or at a loss.

Why would a dealer sell it at a loss? I mean I can understand a one off loss making deal, but isn't it a bit much to think that all dealers are hiking up the buying price to sell their entire inventory at a loss? Who does business in this manner?

[asit.kulkarni93]

Originally Posted by Lalvaz

Did not understand the following points:
1) Why do you call it a "fake bid" ? Is it not a bid put in by a genuine dealer? Will he back out of the deal if his bid is the winning bid?
2) Who puts in these "fake bids"?
3) What's the benefit to the dealers to jack up the price?
4) If the buying price is being jacked up, then how can the seller get the same price?
5) You say investor money can't sustain them for long. Who are these investors and why do you feel they're unable to sustain it, if these aggregator sites have been in business since 2016 till now, isn't it a sustainable business?



Why would a dealer sell it at a loss? I mean I can understand a one off loss making deal, but isn't it a bit much to think that all dealers are hiking up the buying price to sell their entire inventory at a loss? Who does business in this manner?

To answer your questions-

1. Fake bid- not an actual bid by a dealer but a fake account being operated by the aggregator. How difficult is it to get udyam Aadhar for a proprietorship for anyone.
2. Please refer to 1.
3. Dealers have no benefit. The aggregator does. For example- The price that the seller gets will be the same. The dealer pays a high price due to the fake bids & the difference goes in the pockets of the aggregators. Now this worked well when the difference was around 1-2% not when it’s over 10-15%.
4. You think sellers always got what the buyer paid? The 10-12% difference involving cost of repairs and margin was always there in the business. With the aggregators in, they add their hefty margins too. In most cases sellers are told about the pending work or damages to their cars. These cars anyway Re-enter the market as good cars. Obviously the equation slightly changes with well kept cars. But most cars aren’t well kept.
5. Look at the number of times these aggregators have gone around for funding. There was a time when 2 aggregators did not have enough money to give out dealers as a part of the RC refund. I had close to 25k stuck too. 2 weeks later they got another round of funding and our dues were cleared in a week.

Either you need to re read my posts and understand the difference between the dealer and aggregator or you are just catching the extreme end of my posts to create chaos here. Either ways, I have explained the point around additional margins due to the aggregators. That answers the concern. Please also understand that since last 1.5 years, local brokers & dealers have become aggressive too. They do not fully rely on these aggregators for their inventory. Options like Facebook marketplace also have enhanced individual to individual sales.

[SLK]

Originally Posted by androdev

These aggregators are a great boon for sellers. Zero effort of my part as someone comes to inspect the car at my home for free. I just give them the key and few documents and go back to minding my own business. They get back with a price and if you are reasonable with your expectations, the deal gets done and the money comes to your account. You get an agreement of sorts where you are obligated to co-operate with the transfer and they will agree to take over the liabilities after handover. As a seller, this is pretty much the best case scenario for me.

This is also not true. I sold my car to one of the better known aggregators. They offered very bad price as it wasn't your ideal Maruti, Honda, Toyota. The Optra Magnum LT in perfect condition was given away by us to avoid the hassle to deal with individuals and their stupid test drives to test a fast car on city roads!

The car was taken and the amount immediately transferred but the car itself was never transferred from our name. A few months later we also received an over-speeding ticket from another state, which was raised with the aggregator, who confirmed that ticket was paid but refused to do anything to transfer the car.

We tried to ask the aggregator if the car was sold further, to which they refused to reply and always quoted a standard statement that we have a seller protection insurance, and you don't need to worry, etc.

We threatened them with legal action, which didn't work either, so the car till date drives (or exists) somewhere in our name.

Basically, the aggregators are a skin on top of local car dealers, nothing else.

[coriollis]

Great eye-opening thread Asit. Very informative too.
What I have deduced from this information is that, you should only 'Sell' on these aggregator platforms, and that too only when you are in much hurry.

Cheers,
AB

[androdev]

Originally Posted by SLK

This is also not true. I sold my car to one of the better known aggregators. They offered very bad price as it wasn't your ideal Maruti, Honda, Toyota. The Optra Magnum LT in perfect condition was given away by us to avoid the hassle to deal with individuals and their stupid test drives to test a fast car on city roads!

The car was taken and the amount immediately transferred but the car itself was never transferred from our name..

I totally agree that the risk of car not getting transferred is still there and this is the most common complaint from the sellers. However this risk even more with regular dealers and there is no concept of customer service also. This problem is more likely for certain models that are slow movers - Optra Magnum is a perfect candidate, it is a great car to drive but nobody wants to buy it so it sits on the shelf or given to friends and relatives to just drive around, etc. Such problems are not likely to happen to fast moving boring cars. In fact, owners of Optra Magnum, Honda Accord, etc. should find individual buyers instead of selling it to dealers.

However the agreement clearly indemnifies you of any future liabilities, I would be interested to know if that is not the case.