Autotrader 'reserve for £99'

[ScotHill]

A local dealership network will reserve a car for £99 and hold it for you for 48 hours, which I can understand, but Autotrader's T&Cs state 'The Reservation Payment is a sum to be paid for reserving the Vehicle (for a maximum of 21 days) only. It is not a Part payment or deposit towards the price of the Vehicle and it does not guarantee that the Vehicle will be sold to you or that the Vehicle will be available for you to purchase from the Dealer.'

So what's the point in that? You pay £99 and the dealer can still sell it to someone else?

For context, the £99 goes to a third party and is refunded regardless of if you go through with a purchase or not, so it's not like the dealer even gets to see any of it. And they can cancel it at any time if the vehicle is 'unavailable for any reason'.

Is it just to hook in solid sales leads for the seller?

[Auto810graphy]

Have seen it pushed by Autotrader and they have automatically signed us up for it but can’t see it working. It’s bad enough when you get the occasional waster out a deposit on a car to take it off sale then call 7 days later to say they bought one elsewhere.

[georgeyboy12345]

Just another way to rinse £99 from unsuspecting mugs I imagine

[ScotHill]

georgeyboy12345 said:

Just another way to rinse £99 from unsuspecting mugs I imagine

But it's refunded if you purchase the car, and refunded after 21 days if no sale goes through, so unless they're rinsing the mugs out of 21 days interest on £99 it's not really going to be a moneyspinner. The funds are held by third party Stripe anyway.

Auto810graphy said:

Have seen it pushed by Autotrader and they have automatically signed us up for it but can’t see it working. It’s bad enough when you get the occasional waster out a deposit on a car to take it off sale then call 7 days later to say they bought one elsewhere.

Is this fairly new then? If it helps you can probably safely ignore it and still be within their T&Cs!

Edited by ScotHill on Sunday 3rd December 21:00