I found a vehicle that seems like a great deal on an Audi A3 for my son. Everything seemed fine until I decide to buy the vehicle. Customer service is really poor even before you buy the vehicle.
I asked them to provide me Out of the Door cost and they sent me the numbers. I go ahead and put down $500 on the vehicle and they sent me the contract overnight.
The contract has a higher amount then what was conveyed to me via email attachment.
Extended Service contract - I had asked them about providing me details about the extended service contract and they told me, they cannot give any details unless I buy the car. That should have been a big RED flag. Still, I decided to get it based on knowing I can always cancel it and get a prorated refund. I never received the contract for the extended warranty. I got about 50 pages but no details of what is covered, what isn't, if it is refundable or not...you get the idea. Sketch.
Second RED flag, when I had told the associate that I can buy the car outright in cash, I was told I have to do the paperwork if that is the case. I decided to finance and asked them if there is any penalty if I paid off the loan as soon as I got the vehicle and I was told that would be the case.
The difference in the cost of what they indicated to me earlier and what they send me in the contract seems to be GAP insurance. If I am willing to pay off the car or purchase the vehicle outright - why would I pay them $859 or around that they are charging me for Govt fees and GAP insurance? That is big RED flag #3.
Red flag #4 - If you have read all the other negative reviews about their customer service, understand this. I called them first thing after opening the FedEx envelope at around noon Arizona local time and was hoping I can talk to the person with whom I have been dealing. I could not reach her, so I provided the information to someone else who said she will ask Robbie to call me back. She took all the information from me, and no one called me back.
Red flag #5 - I have not seen any company where the associate dealing with you would not provide you a direct contact number or email address. Vroom.com does not provide you an email address for a specific associated; it is a generic email address so you can never email the associate you are working with. You have no number you can reach it is a generic number for their Huston Sale Office and everyone answers. If you ask for an associate and the person does not or cannot answer it goes to voicemail but there is an error in their system so you get a message "I could hear you," and it disconnects you.
Seriously, I believe the business model is great, and at some point there will be an honest company that will make a killing in auto trading, but I doubt if Vroom.com is that vendor though.
Red Flag # (I lost complete count now) is their seven-day, 250-mile, no questions asked return policy seems fake. The contract I received has a date of 6/21/2018 for the seven-day. I received the contract from them yesterday on 6/22, I have not mailed them anything yet and have no intentions of mailing anything back to them. However, I wonder if I were to have mailed it back to them on a Friday, they would not have opened it until 6/25. Even if they had shipped me the car on the same day (highly unlikely), I would not have received the car from Houston to Phoenix, Arizona before 6/27 evening. So, I would have inspected the car on 6/28 and would have been stuck with the car because I exhausted their seven-day return policy on a $22K car.
Seriously, they could do this honestly and become successful, instead, they give you the same taste in the mouth as dealing with any other dealer. I think they did every one of us a favor, the local dealers have become a lot more responsive and are at their A-game in communication and have been providing you everything upfront and it seems better than the past.
Regardless of Vroom.com's success or failure, I am glad they helped the consumers by giving a threat to local dealers.
Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend
4 people found it helpful
Link to this Review
Company Response from Vroom, Inc.
Hi Hemang,
Thanks for your detailed review. We're sorry you did not have a good experience. It's our goal to be as transparent and clear with our customers as possible, and we're sorry if we fell short. We will share your comments with our team.
I did want to address a few of your comments to ensure the information is accurate for others who read your review.
We can definitely provide details of the extended service contract but we need to know the specific vehicle you are looking to purchase to be as accurate as possible. We will work with our agent to further understand the issue here.
We work with a dozen top lenders for financing and none of them charge a penalty for early payoff. We will look into what was communicated to you and make sure that’s clear from our sales team.
We appreciate your comments on being able to talk to one salesperson. Currently, because of the volume of sales we do and our desire to make sure someone is available to answer your questions as quickly as possible, we allow other members of our sales team to help customers. We understand your concern though and are considering alternate ways to handle this in the future.
Lastly, in regard to the 7-day, 250-mile period in which you can test out the car, this time definitely does not start until you have the car in your possession. We recognize this is a substantial purchase and we want to ensure our customers have the right amount of time to make sure the vehicle is right for them.
Again, we are sorry to hear your experience did not hit the mark. If there's anything we can help you with at this point, we'd be happy to escalate your concerns. Thanks again for taking the time to provide such detailed feedback.
The Vroom team