Kelley Blue Book Reviews 253

If I could give this 0 stars I would. Actually I’d give it a negative 5.
Not only is their instant cash offer a load of crap, when you try to inquire about the $3000 discrepancy between the instant cash offer and the dealership offer you get blown off NUMEROUS TIMES. I NEVER HAD ANYONE FOLLOW UP WITH ME….period. STAY AWAY FROM THE INSTANT CASH OFFER UNLESS YOU LIKE BEING RIPPED OFF!

Horrible experience. I spoke with a Daniel about ads my insurance company pulled from his site (Autotrader, but apparently controlled by KBB customer service). Daniel was specific about many things but when asked to put it in writing, he sent a scripted message that didn't say any of the stuff he told me on the phone. My guess is he was disingenuous. I couldn't be sure because he was "unavailable" from that point on. I wish I had recorded the call. KBB used to be an industry standard - now apparently, unreliable and dishonest.

I feel so stupid. I wish I would have found this earlier. Instant cash offer=total scam! To echo other users, so disappointing that they have "sold out". Used to be reliable, trustworthy, and considered standard for car value. Obviously after my experience I see that this a tool to get you to the dealer. Dealer gives you a lesser offer, with their "values". Very, very disappointing and dishonest.

They collect tons of information and give you nothing.. no information.. What happened to them? They used to give you ball park prices, not its just a waste of time.

KBB instant cash offer is a scam to get you to the dealership. Multiple dealers confirmed with me that I would receive my instant cash offer, I even have it in text. I have a pretty brand new truck as well that the dealer confirmed was in immaculate condition, there was absolutely nothing for them to change from what I reported using the KBB instant cash offer tool. They offered me 10k less by using auction prices and carmax. They only use the KBB instant cash offer to get you to walk through their doors, they have no intention of paying you the KBB instant cash offer. Total scam and waste of time and money. Second dealership was the exact same, told me what I would get, get there and they used carmax to value my vehicle instead of KBB, offered me 5k less. I hope one day these POS dealerships will have to close their doors when consumers can order direct from the manufacturer.

I mean I have a 2012 vehicle in pretty great condition and they offered me $415 for a 2012 and they’d probably price it around $5,000 on whatever lot would buy it so enough said.

I wish I had read the reviews before I took half a day off work to go sell my car to a dealer! The instant cash offer seemed fair to me because it’s about $5,000 less than the dealers are selling the same car for right now. Someone opened their car door into mine and the car has spots that could use paintless dent repair because of it. It’s not heavy lifting repairs. The tires are well within specs. The mechanics and interior of the car are perfect. Because of the ding, I listed the vehicle condition as good instead of very good or excellent. Low miles. I went to West Herr Hyundai in Williamsville, New York, - they offered me $3,500 less than the instant cash offer! They would put $500 into fixing the car up and sell it for $9,000 or so more than they are offering me. What a scam! I can’t tell you how irritated I am. I won’t use the KBB instant cash offer ever again nor will I go to that dealership. I called KBB to report the issue and the representative (whose dog was barking in the background) told me that the dealerships can do what they want.

This is a complete waist of time. After going to 2 dealerships, neither even cared to compare the Kelly Blue Book Instant Cash offer to their offer. Both made claims that there were mechanical issues. Neither claim was correct. I think they thought since I am female that I do not know any thing about cars. The one issue that I do have with my car, the breaks shudder, was not mentioned. The first dealership was just rude from the beginning. The second made the offer gave me the paperwork and promised a check. I asked at least 5 times: Is this the correct amount? Are you going to change this offer? All of the time a surfing me this was a done deal. Then, they called 15 minutes later saying they could not process the paperwork and backed out of the deal. This is a SCAM!

Terrible experience with instant cash offers. Do not waste your time. Bait and switch, low ball offers, letting you wait so you agree to a low price having wasted your time already. All the bad tactics. They will try to trick you to get you in the door.

Update: I went to the local AutoNation Volkswagon Dealership and although it took a few more hours than i expected, they honored the deal
read below for the previous days disappointments though:
this is a total waste of time. I received an instant cash offer on your site for $43,300 for my car
I was immediately contacted by phone from
AutoNation Hyundai Mall of Georgia
3445 Buford Dr
Buford, GA 30519
I spoke to “Justin” there on Thursday night and asked him if I could come Friday night at 6:30 and if he would be there for me to work with. He confirmed the time, and said he would be available. I asked him if they would indeed honor the price I saw online and he said “I will tell you the same thing I tell all of my customers – If the vehicle matches exactly what you put in online and there are no surprises, we will honor that price”
I explained to him that my car was like new with less than 7,000 miles and does not have a single ding, scratch or smudge on it inside or out. It really is like new. He assured me that the would honor that price.
When I got to the dealership on Friday at 6:29 (after 30 minutes in traffic), I find that Justin is not there and nobody can find him or knows where he went. I am not happy about this, but another rep was there to help me so I though all would be good.
After presenting my offer to the sales rep, I am told after a few minutes that the KBB “system” has been down all day and they don’t know when it will be back up so I should come back tomorrow.
I am not happy about this, so I ask if it is down for EVERY dealer of just their dealership (I figure I can go elsewhere). The sales rep assures me that the system is down for everyone, and not just them. I ask if we can get everything approved and ready to go so I can just come back tomorrow and pickup my check so I don’t have to waste another day sitting in the dealership. I can see the sales rep’s face getting a little nervous so I can already see where this is headed. He said he needed to check with his sales manager to see what he can do.
He comes back after a few minutes and tells me that they cannot buy the car at that price. I ask him why and he tells me that the price is too high and that is the price that they would sell it for. I remind him that Justin had told me that they would honor that price and he tells me “I am not sure why Justin would have told you that”
This conversation continues for several minutes and I finally ask to speak to the manager who would not honor the price, and am told he would be there “shortly”
The manager never came so the sales rep gets another “manager” whose name tag does not state manager on it, and he doesn’t look like he is a manager. He politely tells me the same thing, but then very insultingly tries to explain to me in basic terms with a calculator how they would not make enough money on the vehicle if they purchased it at the price that I was offered by KBB. I explain very nicely to him that I understand math, but why would they participate in this program if they would not honor the prices that are shown on the website? I asked him if he could find a single thing wrong with my vehicle that would diminish the value in any way. He tells me that they DIDN’T EVEN INSPECT my car, but it looks like it is in great shape. At this point I decide that I am not going to waste any more time at this dealership as they clearly will never honor the price that KBB has guaranteed me. So I leave angry and frustrated and 45 minutes of my life gone.
On my way home, I realize that
Mall of Georgia MINI
3751 Buford Dr
Buford, GA 30519
Is on my way home and they also participate in this program. I figure I should stop there to see what they have to say about my offer. I get there and get seated with a sales rep who I ask very specifically the same question I asked Justin: will they honor the KBB price? He said after a little bit of clarification, that “if the condition matches what I put online” that yes, they would match that offer.
So I sit patiently for about 20 minutes while the sales rep types on his computer, frequently shaking his head. Eventually he says he needs to speak with his sales manager quickly.
I wait.
He returns, only to tell me that they are on a “buying freeze” and would not be able to purchase my car for at least another few weeks. Suspicious indeed. How could sales reps not know about this buying freeze? So once again I find myself leaving empty handed, and feel completely deceived.
I will be honest, I really didn’t expect that this process would go any differently considering that the car industry is such a deceptive and awful industry but I really had thought that Kelly Blue Book was a step above this cesspool of an industry and that maybe I would have a chance at completing this transaction with honesty and integrity.
Apparently I was wrong.

Crooks. I learned from a dealer that they have to pay KBB $650 when someone sells a vehicle to them who have gotten an instant offer. Guess who really pays that…the seller!

I realized that the car dealers would inspect the car and make a lower offer. However, I presumed from the information I entered that the KBB offer would be a reasonable upper limit and the dealer offer would be close enough to for me to accept their offer. Not so at all - you may call me stupid!. The KBB offer was $7,265, the dealer came back with $4,000. I did not waste my time any further with "negotiation", checking with the floor manager game, etc etc.... My lesson is the KBB offer is merely a way to get you into the dealership so the old game can begin. The guy at the dealership said the KBB offers are always too high as he began to justify his much lower offer.

Well as other folks have mentioned the instant cash offer is utter garbage. Went to dealership listed on offer and of course the instant cash offer was not honored. What a waste of time. Our vehicle is a cream puff, extremely low miles (17K), only five years old with no damage, accidents, yada, yada. Dealership came in at 5K lower than instant cash offer. They even said "well you have a 6K value add for the low mileage." Duh, that's why it has higher value, idiot.. Anyway, please just use Carmax and avoid KBB offers, it is simply garbage and not honored. By the way the dealership that did not honor the offer is Phil Long Hyundai of Co Sprgs. This is a very low class dealership as well, just avoid..

This was mostly a waste of time and exposure to scammers. I had one legit response, but didn't go past an initial call with a low ball offer from a remote user. The Instant Cash Offer was jokingly low, $5,758 for a vehicle that KBB/Autotrader said has a private sell value of $9,743 and which I subsequently sold for $9,000 via a Craigslist response. To be fair, I also had numerous scam responses in Craigslist as well, but I had more legit responses and sold via that channel. All in all, I do not recommend listing with KBB/AutoTrader, just use Craigslist for better responses and lower cost (Craigslist $5 instead of KBB/AutoTrader $49).

Kelly blue book Prity much is run by car lot scammers. They give you a price of less than half, of what they will say is a good deal, for the car lot selling it. that's not a fair deal for you.

Like everyone else says it was a scam. I got an offer of 21,500 which was 1500 higher than anything else. I decided to do my diligence. Printed my useless "kbb certificate" drove to kia of Englewood for 25 minutes. Sat for 15 minutes waiting for their manager to evaluate my car. Got an offer of 17,000 and left. Sold my car for 20,600 to gmtv one week later. In this market just avoid dealers they only make money if they steal the car from a seller.

KBB's "cash offer" will generally be higher than Carvana's. The difference? Carvana will actually PAY YOU CASH for your car. With KBB, you have to take your car to the dealership... and negotiate. (It would be interesting to see if ANY KBB deal is ever actually completed with that value.) Wanna bet they will find enough "imperfections" on your trade-in to reduce their "instant" offer to at or below Carvana's?

DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH KBB's INSTANT-CASH NONSENSE. It should actually be illegal.

Kelly blue book has joined the ranks of bad businesses. I've had the displeasure of going through the motions of getting an offer for 5400 for my vehicle. It clearly is worth more than the offer. I made an appointment with a well known car dealer that accepts kbb offers. First of all it's a used car dealership with Vultures as you arrive. Vultures disguised as USED CAR SALES humans. It's sickening to the thought of having to look for your particular vulture but it's something that must be done so you must YELL out his name and wait for the loudest cackle. Well from that cackle you'll still have to contend with the minimum of three cacklers clawing in your direction. Yell this name again !
The other two stopped and turned around as the last cackler continues to size you up 10 yards before it introduces itself as the lucky vulture.I play no games with cacklers so I tell it my final price. It invites me to an office where it looks for such offer. It gets up and goes to another cackler in silent cackle. In turn you'll never guess what approaches; the hand off cackler but with clothes that have been ironed. It comes to say it can only offer 3400. 2000 lower than kbb. The games it wants to begin are stomped out in front of this flock that are assuming they'll each have a go as to which will buy my car at the lowest without getting close to my 1st offer. I said give me my keys please. "Awh now wait a minute , can't we get a better price for you" let me cackle with the third cackler" i stopped his nonsense by exclaiming "GIVE ME MY KEYS NOW!"
So, you see , this is typical of what you'll receive from kbb. So I don't give a star but the only way to write a review is if you put a star. Its all a gimmick to begin with. My recommendation is for you to avoid Vultures at all costs by selling to private party and buying from private party. The other way is for the birds.

The site will not allow me to access it without turning off ad-blocking. Sure, send me adds for this one site. But the problem is, I'll be inundated with 56 trackers (from who knows where?). Sites that refuse to work without ad services have zero respect for privacy. They are welcome to dropping purely functional, non-tracking cookies on my device anytime they want. But if they want my patronage to keep their site alive, they'd better pay attention. And you'd better pay attention, too. Wikipedia provides millions of more data to people while staying alive for years without threat of going down. No ads. Just that people know it's a reliable, multi-peer reviewed site for accuracy and provides a service valuable enough for me to make my pledge. Polar opposite approaches from polar opposite broads of directors. Hmm, which would you say is the more greedy of the two? Oh, I forgot to mention, KBB used several methods to fingerprint me, too.

Talk about unscrupulous, Kelley blue book allows dealerships like Autonation Buick in LoneTree Colorado to set their own Kelley blue book values. For example you will put your information in and Your vehicle will be valuedat the Kelley blue book value minus $5000, which is what happened to me. Some dealers just WILL NOT give you trade in value and we should have a list of those dealership to reference so that we know a trade-in is a complete waste of time which happens most of the time. This is just another group of monopolistic companies are towards leasing the consumer in favor of big business. Kelley blue book is not your friend and never has been