Online car trading chaos: Surfing the web to buy a car, regretting losing money

There are many websites selling cars. It is difficult for customers to distinguish between official websites of dealers and businesses, and risks are always lurking.

When searching online for a car dealership’s website address, you will see dozens of similar results, making it difficult to distinguish which is the official website set up by the dealership. Customers also do not understand why a dealership has so many car sales websites.

Race to open a car sales website

The director of an authorized car dealership in Hanoi said that each dealership usually only has one website, while other websites are opened by sales staff to sell cars, based on the dealership name. Therefore, these websites are designed and have relatively similar names, only the domain names are different.

Chaotic car sales websites, buyers are easily fooled.

“We can now only manage the website created by our sales staff. And we can only manage the listing of selling prices and promotional programs implemented by the agents. For example, regarding prices, we require sales staff to update the exact selling prices of the agents or promotional programs,... As for those who are not our employees, it is difficult to manage,” he said.

According to this director, the number of car sales websites of employees is now very large and difficult to control. Car companies have also asked their distributors to strictly control, but it is impossible to do so. There are sales staff who are agents of the dealer who set up the website; but there are also people who no longer work for the dealer, have moved elsewhere, still keep the website, when customers call, they broker to get a share,...

Even people who are not car dealership sales staff set up websites to sell products.

On those websites, there is information introducing the car models being offered for sale, prices, some promotional programs, and the phone numbers of sales staff. There is also a place for personal email, company name, etc.

However, comparing with the official website of the dealer will show a difference. For example, on the official website of the dealer there is a lot of information about sales programs, services,... but often the staff's websites are not updated enough, only providing general incentives.

The listed prices on some sites are also different, especially with very attractive advertisements such as: hundreds of millions of discounts, shocking promotions, year-end clearance sales,... to attract customers.

Risks lurk

A car salesman said that many customers often go online to find information about the car they want to buy, check the price, etc. If they like it, they will call the staff at the phone number on the website to discuss and negotiate the price. Once they have agreed, the staff will invite the customer to the dealership to see the car and complete the purchase procedures.

For serious salespeople, there is no problem, but meeting bad employees can be risky.

According to regulations, when a customer agrees to buy a car, the staff will take them to the finance department to pay a deposit, get a receipt, then make a contract, and set a date to pick up the car. But if the staff receives the deposit and writes the receipt themselves, there will be problems.

More worryingly, some people even use the website to sell cars without actually having any cars for sale.

The biggest risk is that the salesperson may take the deposit and run away. Therefore, the website is an important sales channel, helping employees to easily find customers. Each employee usually has their own page, hired by software companies to set up.

Car sales websites all use popular keywords, which appear immediately when searched, and of course must have attractive greetings to attract customers' attention.

In fact, there have been cases where sales staff have arbitrarily accepted deposits from many people and then taken a large amount of money and left.

Some customers said that when they went to the website, saw the dealer's name, saw the phone number, called to talk and were invited to the dealer, saw this employee wearing a badge on his chest, with the title of assistant director, so they trusted him to make a contract and deposit a sum of money. But then on the appointment day, the car was nowhere to be seen, when they called, it was missing. It turned out that this employee had received deposits from dozens of people, amounting to billions of dong, and then fled.

More worryingly, some people even take advantage of this type of website to sell cars without actually having any cars for sale.

A customer in Ho Chi Minh City once said he lost a 20 million deposit because he found a website selling fake cars.

This website offers cheap cars, easy procedures, and a protected business trademark. When customers come to find the car, they cannot find it, but the staff tells them that the car is at a store in another location. After completing the procedures and paying the deposit, they will take them to see it, but here they can only see the car on the screen.

The initial deposit for the car was 300 USD, with a proper receipt. The next morning, someone came to the house to ask for an additional payment to make it 20 million VND. After receiving the money, they gave the customer a car purchase contract to sign first, promising to deliver the car 10 days later.

When the customer arrived to pick up the car on time, the car was nowhere to be found. The salesperson asked for an additional 250 million VND before the car could be delivered. The customer requested to see the car and hold the documents before paying, but the company refused. In the end, the customer refused and demanded a refund of the deposit, but was refused. This is not the only customer who has been scammed like this when looking to buy a car on this website.

The car market is booming, the demand for cars is about to increase. Therefore, expanding sales channels is inevitable. It is important that customers are careful when buying cars to avoid risks.

According to VNN