automatch.info

To sell your car, you can do it yourself or you can pay someone to do it for you (either by trade-in at a garage or through a selling agency)

I didn't know that selling agencies existed before I started to sell my car, I'd just done the standard thing and put an advert in the Auto Trader.

Two days later, from the advert on the Auto Trader website, I received a telephone call from Todd from www.automatch.info to sell ...
...their website. They had a list of people just waiting to buy a car like mine; if I was to sign up there and then, I 'would have people calling that afternoon'.

Apparently, Automatch advertise on Sky News' interactive service, in What Car, Parkers, and on the back of Esso receipts, so coverage was good.

I checked with him that the price was right and confirmed that people would be willing to pay the asking price. Yes ... more

To sell your car, you can do it yourself or you can pay someone to do it for you (either by trade-in at a garage or through a selling agency)

I didn't know that selling agencies existed before I started to sell my car, I'd just done the standard thing and put an advert in the Auto Trader.

Two days later, from the advert on the Auto Trader website, I received a telephone call from Todd from www.automatch.info to sell me his company's service; to 'match buyers with sellers' through their website. They had a list of people just waiting to buy a car like mine; if I was to sign up there and then, I 'would have people calling that afternoon'.

Apparently, Automatch advertise on Sky News' interactive service, in What Car, Parkers, and on the back of Esso receipts, so coverage was good.

I checked with him that the price was right and confirmed that people would be willing to pay the asking price. Yes they would, without bartering.

The cost for this amazing service was just £69.20, (much less than the margin I'd set for the bartering process) of which £60 would be refunded if the buyer took out finance (of which '90%' did) through Dial for a Loan, though I presume the purchaser would obtain cheaper finance from alternative sources.

I sat back and waited for the phone to ring, the car was as good as sold.... except I never got a single call from anyone through Automatch, I reduced the asking price (you can do this as many times as you like free of charge) but it didn't help. Two days into the arrangement, I got a phone call from Automatch trying to sell me the service again, she seemed surprised to hear that not one person had called me and asked if I'd been sent the list of buyers; the first I'd heard of one. Duly, a list was promised and never sent.

Six days after the initial call, I rang them to ask for my money back, as I'd been mis-sold.

The truth was confirmed then, their service is merely a [poor] form of advertising. Buyers are expected to find their own cars, even after apparent addition to the infamous list, or sellers are to call them (though of course being sent the list would assist greatly). The word 'match' should therefore be interpreted in the same way that a paper shop window's advertising board matches buyers and sellers. What's more, in a nutshell, if I had believed all from their initial phone call; it was my fault for being naive; a refund would not made.

An email confirmed their stance, and whilst they were 'unable' (read 'unwilling') to refund my money, as a 'gesture of goodwill' they would enable me or a friend to use their service once again free of charge; but considering the lack of response to the first attempt, I will not be taking them up on this.

A call to Trading Standards was unproductive, Automatch is registered in Guernsey and hence out of their jurisdiction.

I did sell the car and I got what I'd set as my desired price, disproving Automatch's argument that the price was too high, (despite their initial declaration it wasn't). I just wish I'd gone with the usual concept that 'if it sounds too good to be true, then this is another shame company trying to rip you off'. 

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