Excellence Auto Network? Any Reviews?

[riced]

Hey guys - has anyone ever heard of or used Excellence Auto Network to sell their car?
This is the only thing I found on google about them:
http://excellenceautonetwork.com/

No reviews or anything...

I ask because I put my Corolla up for sale on AutoTrader on Sunday.
On Monday, a guy from this company called and asked about specific details - what trim is it, is the condition good, etc etc. And to let me know that they had an interested buyer - please keep my phone lines open for more info.

OK fine. This afternoon I get a call from one of their associates - she says they have a buyer ready with cash in hand to pay the full asking price. There's a $500 fee that they charge me but will be legally refunded as soon as the deal is complete.

She's pushy and it's hard to get a word in (maybe that's just how she is). But I was able to ask if there are any strings attached - she says nope - we don't make money off of you, we make money off of the financing from the buyer. We work with mastercard and visa and all that jazz. She goes on to ask for my contact and address and then finally what my mastercard number is. I ask why? She says so we can transfer funds and then after I give her the number, she'll transfer me to a mastercard verification agent to finalize. After that, the buyer will contact me for a test drive to check the car out and hand me the money and the deal is done.

Instincts told me "nope, don't do it". So I told her, I'll have to think about it and read up on them first because it sounded too good to be true. She immediately said "it sounds like you're not interested in selling to our customer, we'll just move onto the next Corolla. Bye" and hung up.

TLDR: company found a buyer for my car within 24 hours. Willing to pay full price. Asked for MC number for verification. I refused. She got mad and hung up.

Question is - did I potentially miss out on getting the actual full amount? Or did I dodge a bullet?

[colsankey]

You were being scammed.
If they want to sell the car they can give you the asking price and negotiate a deal with their imaginary buyer.

[J.M.]

Dodged a bullet for sure.

Sounds similar to that ez cars and trucks shit

[relyt92]

Unless you're selling some niche car (and even then?), nobody is going to go through an agency to buy your private sale car at full asking price. Pretty well safe to ignore anyone that's acting as a middleman when selling.

[lilmira]

:rofl: oh really, I want to buy it back from the buyer for 10000 more once I sell the car. i want 5000 from you first. You know just to make sure that your buyer will sell it back to me for more money, who wouldn't right? Totally refundable once I buy it back. So why don't we make it simple? You just send me 4500 and call it a day.

[NRGie]

My neighbour had the exact same thing happen to him. He ended up paying the company $500 but hasn't heard anything back yet in regards to the sale of the vehicle.

They're not ignoring him or anything, he's still in contact with them but it's been about 2 months and no sale.

Why he doesn't just get his money back if they're not ignoring him, I don't know, I'll ask him when I see him again.

[riced]

Originally posted by relyt92
Unless you're selling some niche car (and even then?), nobody is going to go through an agency to buy your private sale car at full asking price. Pretty well safe to ignore anyone that's acting as a middleman when selling.

Totally get it. The reasoning was that these people couldn't get financed anywhere else so they're going through this company. The company is making money through interest of the finance - not through the sale of the car. Still sounded reasonable to me

[riced]

Originally posted by NRGie
My neighbour had the exact same thing happen to him. He ended up paying the company $500 but hasn't heard anything back yet in regards to the sale of the vehicle.

They're not ignoring him or anything, he's still in contact with them but it's been about 2 months and no sale.

Why he doesn't just get his money back if they're not ignoring him, I don't know, I'll ask him when I see him again.

I'm interested in knowing what happens.
They're not unreachable and their phone number has a receptionist and everything (is it all a set up? Who knows).

The funny thing is they say they'll pay the full price of the car - $19,500 in this case. But they'll charge me $500 until the sale is final to ensure I don't run away with the money. In my mind, I'll run with your $19,500 before I lose sleep over $500. Lots of bits during the conversation made it very fishy but part of me still wonders if this is legit if there's no bad reviews of them online.

[max_boost]

It's a service and maybe won't use the word scam in case they message rage2 lol but I have never heard anyone selling their car through these types of places or got their money back.

My first experience was GREAT CARS And TRUCKS back in 2003 and I paid $65 I think. God damn it $500?

They basically call everyone on Trader and Kijiji.

They called me and told me there was a buyer ready to buy and I said, cut me a cheque less $500 and consider it done. *Oh sir it doesn't work like that*. Well then, fk off!

[max_boost]

There are no bad reviews because they keep changing their name and throw up a different website.

This is the reason why I don't even bother with Trader or Kijiji anymore. Sure I am going to lose out on exposure but I'm not that desperate to sell and every car I have sold is to either a referral, member or lurker.

[ExtraSlow]

A legit company wouldn't ask for money from the seller. Ever.

[rx7_turbo2]

This is still a thing?

Where's James Stewart of ezcarsandtrucks.com? You got competition buddy :rofl:

For everyone's reference:
http://forums.beyond.ca/st/359113/ezcarsandtrucks-com-james-stewart/

[BokCh0y]

Sounds like a competitor or division of ez cars and trucks to me.

Whenever i post a vehicle for sale, it drives me crazy that these dicks call me and end up wasting my time.

[NRGie]

Originally posted by riced


I'm interested in knowing what happens.
They're not unreachable and their phone number has a receptionist and everything (is it all a set up? Who knows).

The funny thing is they say they'll pay the full price of the car - $19,500 in this case. But they'll charge me $500 until the sale is final to ensure I don't run away with the money. In my mind, I'll run with your $19,500 before I lose sleep over $500. Lots of bits during the conversation made it very fishy but part of me still wonders if this is legit if there's no bad reviews of them online.

The company claimed that they had a customer lined up that needed financing. They advertised themselves as a finance company.

I know companies like this exist because I use to work at a dealership and agencies/companies would buy vehicles off us that they had already approved their own customers on. But if the company that contacted you has someone ready and willing to pay cash it's probably a scam.

Also the companies that bought our vehicles never asked us for $500 or for anything else beforehand.

[Skyline_Addict]

Don't bother. Nobody is looking after your best interests when selling your own car, except you.

[riced]

Thanks for the insight gents! Appreciate it.
Happy to know I didn't miss an opportunity... I don't sell enough cars apparently.

[ExtraSlow]

These guys are nearly as bad as those scam recruitment agencies who ask for $500 to "process your paperwork" and pretend to be lining you up for a $100k/yr job, only to ghost out later. Scumbags.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[Hallowed_point]

Originally posted by ExtraSlow
A legit company wouldn't ask for money from the seller. Ever. Yes. I guess it's just another symptom of a recession. Scumbags looking to profit.

[AnneM]

Excellence Auto is not a registered corporation or trade name in Alberta. It is associated with AUTOSELL out of Las Vegas Nevada (that is where the credit card gets charged from). A representative told my husband on the phone that they had a buyer ready, but that the financing can't be processed until you sign onto their services. I called to speak to the "Richard" salesman from a different phone number, but could not stay on hold to wait for him and could not get a call back until I provided a phone number that they had on their file already. I gave them the original phone number and got a call back - was told that they make money on the financing deal - borrowing from big banks and lending at a higher rate. The caller display comes up as a local phone number, but they have no physical business address on their site.

The contract my husband signed stated that "Any timeframe for the sale of my vehicle discussed with me was simply an example of how quickly Autosell would like to see the vehicle sell and not a promise or guarantee of any." The charges on your VISA are in US dollars. They sent a contract to my husband to be signed electronically and indicated both my name & my husband's (so he was signing for me). They called my husband after he signed on to tell him that the financing would take 2 weeks to process.

By email, I disputed the validity of the contract because my husband was not authorized to sign for me and I did not agree to the terms and the vehicle was only registered in my name. I was told on the phone that I was treating "Richard" like a criminal and why would they go through all of this for $500 and that this was legitimate. I told him to produce the buyer or give me my money back. They did not provide refund.

To be safe, I cancelled my contract within the 3-day cancellation period stated on their contract - I should have received a refund less a processing fee - they told me that I was not within the three day period. For this to be true, they counted the day of signing as one of the three days.

I was going to sue them in small claims court, but because Excellence Auto is not a registered corporation or trade name this would be difficult.

In the end, I went to my VISA company and lodged a Fraud claim - told them about the contract, the verbal assurances used to entice us to sign etc. If they disputed our claim, I said that I want the name and contact information of the person and details about the company (so that I could sue them myself). I asked VISA if they keep track of these 'businesses' and they said Yes - so if you know anyone who has gone through this, tell them to speak to VISA and let them know - even if they can't get their money back now, it will flag the company doing this.

VISA gave us a full refund with interest. Awesome result for us, but I don't want any other person going through this so share!

Experiences like these attack the good and hope in people. It preys on the foundation of good community. It made me much more skeptical in all of my other dealings selling my vehicle - I don't want to live like this. There are good people in the world - we need to stand together against the "ghosts" that prey on our trust and humanity.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Anything with "Excellence" in the name in the Auto industry is pretty much guaranteed to be the opposite...

[roberts99]

Hey I know these guys I got a loan from them for a work truck I needed when I was desperate ...At you know what 24% ya thats right look I had NOO choice that was 2 years ago anyway the dude that had the vehicle listed on their site was a really good dude even tried to give me a better deal on the truck but they said we had to stick to the original price anyways..They just knocked down my %%% rate cause I recommended a buddy who was hard up and he got a truck from them too. I'm down to 10% Whoosh still hefty but whatever Im getting to work .These guys are as real as it gets the mafia of interest rates straight upppp!!!!!:guns:

[Disoblige]

Originally posted by roberts99
Hey I know these guys I got a loan from them for a work truck I needed when I was desperate ...At you know what 24% ya thats right look I had NOO choice that was 2 years ago ...
Yeah, you had no choice. :rolleyes:

[Experienced User]

My experience on using this company:
I promised myself I'd provide feedback on using Excellence Auto Network after I had difficulty finding feedback on them. I listed a car for sale on Kijiji in the Toronto area. In the following days I was contacted only by apparent scammers. Excellence called and I put them off, saying I'd have to check them out. They called back some days later and, against my better judgment, I signed up. I was going through a process with their agent trying to see the forms to see what I would be agreeing to, and before I knew it, I'd signed up. The pitch is that they get my car noticed (which is frankly a problem with the thousands of listings on other sites). They charge $500 (actually US$500 but this isn't immediately apparent) for a 45 day listing (which is renewable for as long as it takes to sell (for no further charge). They claim to market the car to people with bruised credit who have little choice but to pay high prices and high interest rates. Excellence says they are primarily interested in the financing, and this may in fact be true but clearly they are also very interested in the listing fee. They suggest they can sell the car for my asking price (which I had inflated to allow for negotiation) plus the amount of their fee. The point being that if they successfully arrange a sale then I get more net proceeds. They suggest there is no negotiation (although I think this may not be true as they seemed to suggest later a potential buyer could make a lower offer for me to consider), that the buyer arranges to buy through their financing contacts, who provide the buyer with a certified cheque payable to me. He meets me, does a quick test drive and so long as the car is basically as advertised, we do the deal. There is a three day window to back out of the listing arrangement for a $200 (?) cancellation fee. I got cold feet after I couldn't find pertinent reviews on them and called back to cancel in the 3-day window. Their guy talked me into giving them a chance, pointing out (correctly) that any negative comments I was seeing online were from people who had never used their service. I felt kind of honour bound to use the service since I'd signed up for it. I had listed on Kijiji for $10,900, hoping to get $10,000 (which I felt was a very fair price for the car). They listed the car on their site (which is quite real and seems quite legitimate) for $11,500. I cancelled the Kijiji listing to let the process play out in the hope of getting the $11,500. The 45 days passed with no offer. I renewed and lowered the price to $10,500. Another month passed with no offers. I lowered the price to $9,500. Each time I lowered the price their rep said that will definitely get their attention. When I lowered the price to $9,500 I also posted the car on Auto Trader for $9,500. I sold it through autotrader for $9,000 a week later. I continued to leave the car listed with Excellence for another 15 days to see if they would come up with a buyer. Yjey did not. All in all, I had the sense that they try to do exactly what they represent they will. The problem is that for a US$500 non-refundable fee, they better have a high success rate. My experience was disappointing and I have no reason to believe it's not typical. They do answer the phone and they co have a legitimate web site, but their service to me was a complete waste of money.

[max_boost]

That sucks but lesson learnt. I fell for one back in 2003 but it was just for $65. Never again!