Pay by Carsales.com.au My Experience

I recently purchased a second hand car privately via carsales.com.au. which was a logistics challenge because the car was in TAS and I'm in VIC.

The seller suggested using pay by carsales, which appears relatively new. There wasn't much I could find online, so I thought I should detail my experience.

To start with, I had to send and offer in carsales to be accepted by the seller.

To use the function, both the seller and purchaser had to verify ID. It was your typical verify ID experience.

Once the seller accepted the offer, then I was able to transfer funds in carsales via my bank with a BSB and ACC provided by carsales.

Each transfer was held by my bank for 24 hours, but once it went, it hit carsales immediately, and I received a notification.

Both me and the seller could see the funds.

I flew to TAS and met the seller on a Saturday. Once I saw the car, I had to release the funds on carsales. It sent me a mobile code to confirm.
The seller had to accept and did the same. The funds then immediately hit his account.

Overall, it was very efficient. There were no fees other than what the seller would have paid to advertise initially.

The only thing I would suggest to others is better secure your carsales account. I was not prompted to implement 2FA during the process, which you can set up on your carsales.com.au account, but it is not enforced like paypal might do, for example.

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Comments

  • +13

    As a shareholder of cargroup, I endorse this advertisement

  • +1

    How would this be different than you flying to TAS and pay the seller after seeing the car directly?

    • +9

      Well as a car seller seeing OP put funds in shows he is serious.
      And I’m more likely to hold the car till the weeekend and not show it around before hand to others.

      • Yes. This was the sentiment of the seller I dealt with.

      • if theres a cost to the seller from using this at the point of sale (i have not checked if there is but assume so) what stops a buyer from depositing cash as a sign of interest and then settling in cash (esp to avoid/reduce stamp duty - illegal i know but a majority of used car sales does do this) to get a lower final price.
        Would be a loss-leader product for CS then i guess?

        • My thoughts are that carsales are using the deposits to make money on the overnight markets, scraping interest off their deposits, so even if this were to happen they are still making money off this system. That's just my guess though. Armaguard et al do this.

          • @Masterpupil: yeah, that's true indeed. $10k in there for a week would likely net $10.

  • +5

    Yeah, I’ve heard a few friends that it’s a great process and it makes a lot easier to sell a car without all the scammers that like to come along

  • +12

    I would like to buy but I’m on an oil rig right now but my uncle can come pick up

    • +1

      Ask your “uncle” to send funds now!

      • +2

        His silly uncle accidently sent too much money. Please kindly send the overpayment amount back.

    • -1

      When will
      Your uncle be back from Nigeria?

  • so you transfer the entire money offer to carsales, without even seeing the car? If the car isnt' as adverised(undisclosed damaged etc), are you able to reduce the offer?

    personally don't like the idea, unless it was just a desposit of somesort to show interest to the seller.

    • You can cancel the offer. I had the car inspected before I put in the offer anyway.

      • if you cancel the offer, do you have to wait to get your funds back before making another offer?

        • Not clear on that, but I suspect you do which would be really annoying.

  • +5

    Ah so an escrow transaction.

  • Thanks for providing the feedback OP, hadn't heard of this before.
    It sounds a good way to deal with large transfers for both parties all though still not good for buyers if the car were under finance.

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