It’s hard to imagine that, just a few years ago, we hesitated to buy certain items on the web that we now consider perfect for purchasing online—from shoes to dinner ingredients. Thanks to buyer protection programs from an ecommerce pioneer like eBay, any remaining concerns about using the web to buy a car are fading away.
“We doubled the limits of our Vehicle Protection Plan, from $50,000 to $100,000,” said Kevin Considine, director of vehicles at eBay Motors. “This broadens our protections to the millions of car buyers and auto enthusiasts shopping on eBay, even those purchasing a highly customized or rare classic car. No other car shopping site has this.” For example, cars like the rare $99,900 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1 shown at the top of this page are eligible for coverage.
Most users shopping for a car on eBay don’t realize that when you find your dream car and click on eBay’s “Buy It Now” button, you automatically qualify for the company’s expansive Vehicle Protection Plan (VPP). That means if the car that you buy never shows up, or if certain of its features aren’t as described in the listing —then you may be eligible to receive reimbursement up to the amount you paid, not exceeding $100,000. (See full terms of Vehicle Purchase Protection.)
“If the vehicle was purchased on eBay in the United States and it sold for up to $100,000, then we got your back,” said Considine. The new and improved protection program now includes the full range of vehicles, everything from scooters to airplanes, which were previously not covered.
Ensuring Trust
The possibility of a buyer being misled purchasing a vehicle on eBay is extremely unlikely. That’s because the VPP is merely the final backstop protection in a long list of risk-prevention strategies used by eBay to put car buyers at ease. “We have effective systems in place that monitor and detect fraudulent activity,” said Clayton Stanfield, senior manager of vehicles at eBay Motors. “That activity is highly uncommon considering all the successful transactions that take place on the marketplace.”
Stanfield explained that eBay uses a robust system that includes filters and monitoring tools that help determine if something is fishy about any vehicle listing. Every case that’s questioned is reviewed to determine if eBay took the appropriate action to protect buyers. “For those who purchased a vehicle on eBay, they’ve seen firsthand how hard we work to make the process easy and safe,” said Stanfield. “All users can rest assured that we provide proper support. They know what they’re getting and there is proper recourse if a problem arises.”
Is this $100,000 classic 2004 Lamborghini Gallardo coupe your dream car? With eBay’s new vehicle protection plan limits, it’s eligible for coverage so you can buy it online with confidence.
Inspections, Best Practices, and Red Flags
Whereas previous generations of car buyers might have gained confidence by walking around a car and kicking its tires, today’s new generation of eBay car buyers offers something much better. eBay partners with a nationwide service called WeGoLook, which can send a professional inspector to either eyeball the car to make sure it’s generally in good shape, or to conduct a complete mechanical inspection. eBay also provides the buyer access to a full range of other partner services, including vehicle history reports, shipping, financing, or an escrow account to complete the transaction. All these measures add up to a level of car-buying confidence to satisfy the most hesitant eBay user.
While the eBay Motors Vehicle Protection Plan provides significant protections for purchasing a car online, buyers nonetheless should follow a set of common sense rules recommended by eBay Motors:
Carefully read the vehicle listing and study the photographs, to confirm the condition of the car and the terms of the sale.
Spend even more time reading feedback submitted by other buyers about the seller’s past transactions. Then, research how that seller has been reviewed by other consumer review websites. If you’re not impressed with the seller, consider a different vehicle sold by another seller.
Watch out for any seller that refuses to speak with you on the phone or who claims that he or she is selling the car “for a friend.”
Avoid a car that’s listed for sale on a third-party non-eBay classified site, or that uses a suspicious email addresses—if the seller asks you to complete the transaction on eBay.
Finally, there’s a lot of truth to the old adage that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t be pressured to make a fast transaction on a car that is selling for a price well below other comparable vehicles. That car probably doesn’t exist.
But the biggest red flag is any seller who tries to get you to transfer money or otherwise complete a transaction off the eBay platform. To qualify for the eBay Vehicle Protection Plan, the transaction MUST be made on eBay using the “Buy It Now” or “Make Offer” buttons or through a winning auction price confirmed in your user account and via a congratulatory eBay email. That’s the key to the industry’s one-of-a-kind $100,000 buyer protection program.