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Home > Browse > How to Buy Vehicles

How to Buy – Vehicles on Online-Auto-Auctions
The following information relates to buying used vehicles on this site.

First Step
The first step in purchasing a vehicle on this site is to Register. Please do so now if you have not already done so. It only takes a few minutes and once you have done so, you can start the buying process.

Searching
Within this site there are various ways to search for your vehicle. Click on our browse page to browse for the vehicle you are interested in. Many pages including the home page and the individual listing pages have search boxes. More advanced searches can be done for specific passenger vehicles, motor vehicles (such as motorcycles, atv’s or snowmobiles) and other vehicles (buses and r.v.’s) by clicking on the “search” tab on the navigation bar at the top of every page.

How to bid
Remember that as part of the registration process, the user agreement you agreed to specifies that when you bid, it is a binding agreement between you as the buyer and the seller buyer. If you win the auction, you are obligated to pay the seller the amount you bid. Not paying entitles the seller to seek all legal remedies, and it will lead to bad feedback and being banned from this site.

One of the key considerations buyers should make is how much they can afford to bid. The following costs should be taken into consideration:

The actual final bid amount to be paid for the vehicle.
Shipping for the vehicle (if necessary).
Taxes to be paid on the vehicle.
State Motor Vehicle fees (which vary state by state).
Insurance Costs (which will be an ongoing monthly amount).
Any maintenance or repairs appropriate for the vehicle.
And of course the ever present costs for oil and gasoline.

One of the ways to decrease the shipping costs is to use our location filter in searching. This filter will limit your results to your local area. You can also pick up the vehicle yourself. However if the car you want is located a great distance away, shipping with our preferred shipper may be the best alternative and less time consuming.

If you are unsure about the specifics of the deal, we strongly advise you to have them clarified even before bidding. Email the seller so that you clearly understand the payment terms (by credit card, personal check or other specific methods) and any other issues that need to be addressed.

Evaluating a vehicle
We strongly urge and advise all buyers to properly evaluate a vehicle even before bidding on it. There are four main ways in which you can do this. They include a title search, a test drive, a professional inspection and checking the seller’s feedback.

Title Search/Lemon Check
One method of evaluating the vehicle is to check its title and make sure it is not a lemon. Carfax.com is one our ancillaries and offers a free lemon check by simply typing in the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) from our listing page into their site. For additional fees to Carfax.com, you can get a more detailed history on the vehicle.

Test Drive
Another evaluative tool is to test drive the vehicle yourself or have a mechanic do it. (This would particularly apply if you limit your search to your geographic area). Most sellers will offer this option and we recommend you avail yourself of it. We suggest you do it in daylight hours and meet the seller in a public place with a friend or mechanic.

Inspection
Many sellers will list whether the vehicle has had a recent inspection. We have a specific category for these vehicles called pre-inspected vehicles. If they do not have an inspection report attached to the listing, you can contact the seller them and ask them to take the vehicle into a Ford, Dodge or GM Dealership, or a Midas or Firestone shop for the inspection. You will have to pay for the inspection but it is well worth the money. The seller can scan the report and attach it to the listing of the vehicle or they can fax it directly to you usually within 48 hours.

Check the seller’s feedback
Finally as a buyer, you can check the seller’s feedback in their profile. Before you bid, you can find out what other recent buyers have said about their specific transaction and what the seller’s business practices were like and their integrity throughout the process.

Now you are ready to start bidding – The Auction process
Before you bid on the Vehicle you would like to buy, it is important to understand the main auction types and terminology used. Online-Auto-Auctions has an extensive Glossary section that you can consult to explain common auction terms.
In addition, there are two main auction types:

Reserve/Non-Reserve Auctions auctions – in order to win a ‘reserve’ auction, you as the bidder must meet or exceed the reserve price and have the highest bid. If there is no reserve price, then you just have to be the highest bidder to win.
Private Auctions – in these types of auctions, the bidder’s identities are not known (on this site, the bidders email addresses or profiles will not show). Only when the auction is over does the seller know who won and then it is up to the buyer to meet the seller’s terms.

Bidding process
In addition to the two overall categories of bidding (reserve and no reserve) Online-Auto-Auctions has three types of auctions:

Pre-Inspected – where the seller has already had the Vehicle inspected and the inspection report is attached to the listing.
Conditional – where the buyer bidder places a bid and if the highest bidder, the sale of the Vehicle is contingent on the buyer having the Vehicle inspected and if satisfied, the buyer would pay the full amount of the bid. (The seller would still normally require a deposit).
As Is – Final – are auctions where the seller is offering the Vehicle for sale as is and the buyer is willing to purchase the vehicle no matter what the condition of the vehicle is as disclosed by the seller.

In bidding on an Vehicle, it is also important to bid the maximum amount you are willing to pay for the Vehicle at the outset. Online-Auto-Auctions system employs a proxy bidding system and will make automatic bids to the level you set in your bid. If another bidder outbids you, the system will notify you by email. You can then re-bid the Vehicle to a new maximum. Often your first proxy bid is sufficient to win the Vehicle. For example if you set your maximum bid for a vehicle at $6,000 and the minimum set by the seller is 4,500 then your initial bid will be set at $4,500. If another bidder entered the auction and had as their proxy bid $5,000, their initial bid would go in as $4,525. The system would start bidding on behalf of both bidders until there was only one bid & bidder left. You would win the Vehicle in this auction with a bid of $5,025. That would become your purchase price, shipping, taxes state motor vehicles fees would have to be paid thereafter.

Withdrawing a bid
You should only withdraw a bid in exceptional circumstances (see retracting a bid). Remember that this could incur negative feedback in your profile. Ensure that the bid you place is exactly what you can afford (see how much you can afford above and our guide to buying a used vehicle). We strongly recommend you pre-qualify yourself before your bid with a car loan from a finance company such as our online financial partners like People First and E-Loan. This will place a dollar limit on the bid you make beyond which you cannot afford. And if you are the successful bidder, it will make the transaction go quicker. You will know with certainty your monthly payments including interest and any other charges.

Vehicles or Vehicles worth $10,000 or more
Online-Auto-Auctions requires that if you are bidding on any Vehicle over $10,000, that you put must have your credit card on file. There will be no charges to the card, but it must be on file. Once this is done, you can bid as often as you wish for any Vehicle over $10,000 in value. In addition, on vehicle transactions greater than $10,000 Online-Auto-Auctions requires that you use our OAA Escrow system to protect you as the buyer in the transaction.

During the auction itself
As the auction proceeds, you can keep track of the Vehicle’s price by a number of ways, including:

Saving it as a “favorite” through your browser;
Clicking the “watch Vehicle” feature on the Vehicle page itself. Then you use the
my homepage function at the top of each page. This is personal homepage function that will track Vehicles that you bid on, won, lost, are selling and are watching as auctions proceed. (The homepage also contains your favorite categories, searches, sellers and the feedback registered under your name).
You can browse for vehicles on our Browse page or type the make and model of the vehicle into the title and description section of the Search page.

Auction’s length
An Online-Auto-Auction can only last 1, 3, 5 or 7 days and as such returns faster results to you as the buyer and/or seller. In addition, Online-Auto-Auction is home to Internet’s fastest grouped “Flash Auctions” for every single category on this site. If you are looking for an immediate transaction of the vehicle you want and you have the funds today for it, then just type the make of the vehicle at the bottom of our Browse page and the system will bring up a list of those makes that are in the “Flash Auctions” category. Flash auction vehicles are in the last 24 hours of the auction (displayed as a yellow listing in all of our listing categories) and will “flash” their time remaining in the last 2 hours of the auction.

After the auction – contacting the seller
After the auction ends and you are the successful bidder- you will get an email notice advising you that you won the final price of the Vehicle. The email will include the seller’s contact information. You can also contact the seller yourself by simply filling in the email section on the bid page for that vehicle.
If you are not the successful bidder, but are the next highest bidder – keep in mind that the transaction with the highest bidder may fail, and the seller may contact you and offer you the Vehicle at the last price you bid.

Payment
Given there are three main auction types with Online-Auto-Auctions, the method of payment depends on the type of auction. It is common practice for the seller to require a % of the final auction price to hold the vehicle once the auction is complete. Always check the terms section of the Vehicle page to know this amount. Overall, it is good idea to be prepared to pick up the vehicle in a short amount of time to complete the transaction or be prepared to have the vehicle shipped to you.

No matter what type of auction you won, you always have the option of using our Escrow service. This service will hold your payment and send it to the seller only after you had the Vehicle inspected and given your approval. Similarly, if for some reason the vehicle was sent back, the same opportunity to inspect and approve will be given to the seller before the buyer is refunded their money. [This would be very rare occurrence].

It is always a good idea to check that there is no lien on the vehicle even before bidding on a vehicle. Most if not all finance companies have special requirements and conditions to deal with this issue. You can get this information from an advanced title check from CarFax or from the Department of Motor vehicles in your state/province.

We strongly advise the use of Escrow service particularly if you are having the vehicle shipped and you do not know the seller and the seller has little or no feedback. It just makes good business sense not to turn over the full amount of the agreed to auction funds until you are satisfied with the Vehicle and it was fairly represented by the seller. {See our NetSafety & Fraud Protection programs under our Assurance Services for more information}. In addition, sellers will not transfer ownership or sign the vehicle title over to you until they receive the full payment agreed to.

Title & Registration
Once the vehicle has been paid for in full and the seller signs over the title, you then contact your state’s Motor Vehicle Department to register the title transfer and pay appropriate taxes.

For a list of STATE MOTOR VEHICLE DEPARTMENTS (websites), click here.

Registering Feedback
Finally registering feedback on the seller is important for future buyer’s to rate that seller. To do this you click on the leave feedback link halfway down on the Vehicle page.

Fraud Protection
A reminder to buyers to read Online-Auto-Auction’s NetSafety program and our Fraud Protection programs under our Assurance services. Buyers in cases of materially misrepresented Vehicles, illegally listed Vehicles and fraud can utilize both these programs. These programs are there to protect you as a buyer and assure the integrity of the auction process.