Carvana Review : Is Legit or a Scam? 2024

Carvana is an online store where used cars are sold at affordable prices. Carvana was founded to serve those who are in need of cars but prefer used cars. Their online store is tailored to make shopping very easy and simple for shoppers.

Carvana does not only deal on used cars, but they also provide direct financing for the cars they sell on their platform so as to help their customers who could not provide immediate financial of their purchase.

As a buyer on Carvana, you can browse their online list and make a complete purchase on their store at the comfort of your house. Once after you have placed your order, you can relax and wait for the delivery of your car which can be delivered to your doorstep or from any of the cities that Carvana has a physical presence.

History of Carvana

The origin of Carvana can be traced to 3 individuals which are Ben Huston, Ernest Garcia III, and Ryan Keeton. The aforementioned persons founded this amazing used-car dealing company in the year 2012 as a subsidiary of used car retailer and finance company DriveTime, but it was spun off in 2014.

Ernest Garcia II was the owner of DriveTime and the largest shareholder of Carvana, but he was later convicted of bank fraud charges. To settle part of its debt-collection practices and other issues, Carvana was fined $8 million in 2014 by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In 2015, Carvana opened its signature car vending machine in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. This signature car vending machine is an entirely automated, coin-operated version. DriveTime’s affiliate, Bridgecrest, which is a subprime auto lender, really services loans with Carvana financing. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, DriveTime and DT Acceptance Corporation, its finance arm, are United States’ biggest buy-here-pay-here dealer.

Under the symbol CVNA, Carvana trades on the New York Stock Exchange since it went public in April 2017. Carvana’s Headquarters is located at Tempe, Arizona, United States, and their services are for customers living within the United States. The chairman and Chief Executive Officer of this great company is Ernest Garcia III.

Is Carvana Legit or Scam?

Carvana is truly legitimate. They have done their best to deliver quality products since they began operation. This can be confirmed from the mind-blowing reviews from their happy customers on their website. At the time of writing this post, there were 57909 reviews on Carvana website in which 47187 out of 49180 (96%) recommended Carvana with 4.7 Star Rating.

This shows that Carvana keeps to all their promises, and that majority of their customers are satisfied with their products and services. However, their customers’ reviews on different sections of their services were obtained as follows:

• Customer service 4.7
• Inventory selection 4.7
• Purchase process 4.8
• Vehicle quality 4.6
• Delivery experience 4.7
• Pick up experience 4.8

If Carvana wasn’t legitimate, the customers wouldn’t have given them such beautiful ratings. And also, they were accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) since June 2015 with an A+ rating. Therefore, think of Carvana when you think of your next car. Moreover, in order to authenticate the review results and ratings we obtained from Carvana website, we had to collect review results and ratings from other sites.

How Carvana Works

Carvana provides its customers with the platform to either buy a used car from them or sell to them. They accept all credit, and all the customer is required to do is to browse their online car inventory and get financing approval. Carvana gives their customers great values for their trade-in, and they also help them not to spend much time in the dealership. Carvana’s process enables its users to easily and quickly get fair value for their trade.

In order to trade, you are required to complete an online appraisal process which is a mare answering of few questions about your vehicle. When you are done with the questions, then Carvana will provide you with real value for your trade-in. You have 2 options to choose from as soon as you accept Carvana’s offer: it is either you collect payment from Carvana or you use your trade-in value to shop online on Carvana as your first instalment.

Once your deal with Carvana is settled, you will have to either drop off the car at any of Carvana’s vending machines, or they will come to you in order to perform final scrutiny of your trade-in; it all depends on your location.

Carvana’s vending machines location includes cities such as;

• Houston, Gaithersburg, Birmingham, Tampa, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City, Warrensville Heights, Orlando, Bridgeville, Kansas City, Nashville, Frisco, Westminster, San Antonio, Charlotte, Oak Brook, Raleigh, Tempe, Greensboro, Austin, Memphis, Ontario, Jacksonville, Miami, and Indianapolis. Selling or buying used-car on Carvana is as simple as that.

Carvana does not sell cars that have been in a reported accident; and also, cars with structural or frame damage are not displayed for sale on Carvana site. Therefore, your rest of mind is guaranteed with Vehicles purchased on Carvana.

Why You Should Consider Shopping on Carvana

Online Purchase and Review

Carvana has a well-organized site which is easy and simple to browse. You can do your contract review and signing on this online platform while at the comfort of your home. You can take as much time as you wish to get exactly what you want, although it can take you as little as 10 minutes to complete your car purchase on Carvana.

When you are done with your selection process, your next action would be to select a pick-up or delivery time, and also have your down payment information submitted. The entire process is very easy and simple. You are in total control while making your purchases on this platform. You’ll neither do your shopping under pressure nor need the service of managers.

7-Day Money-Back Guarantee

Carvana allows its customers to take their time in making their final decisions. They do this by giving their customers a 7-Day Money-Back Guarantee. This means that the customer would be allowed to take the car home, test it as much as he wants, show it to his friends, and perhaps take it to his mechanic maybe for authentication within 7 days. Carvana takes the car back if the buyer returns it for any reason at all within these 7 days, isn’t this amazing?

Save Your Favorite Car

To make purchases on the Carvana platform you are required to first create your account. After creating your account, you can browse the site and save the vehicles that caught your fancy. You can also review financing options and compare prices. Saving your favourite vehicle on this site makes future purchases even easier and simpler.

Getting Financing

Making payments on Carvana is also simple and easy as you can use your financial institution, or pay with cash, or get financing from Carvana. Each of the aforementioned modes of payment are available on Carvana site.

In a situation where you choose to finance your purchase through Carvana, their ever interactive and responsive financing sliders will guide you through the process of selecting a suitable payment plan. Remember, all the processes are done online which means you can do them while resting on your sofa.

Easily Find the Best Car for You

Carvana provides you with detailed information of all the vehicles in their platform. With any of the 9 dynamic filters on the site, you can easily find the car that suits your life. With Carvana’s patented 360-degree photo technology, you can spin the vehicle virtually and inspect its features and flaws (if any exists).

That notwithstanding, the site will provide you with the full details of the vehicle when you click on the Details tab. The details will include the vehicle’s history report and its specifics. Moreover, you can easily contact (call) Carvana for help when you have the need.

Nice Pickup Experience

Like we mentioned earlier, you have two options to get the vehicle you purchased on Carvana: you either have Carvana deliver the vehicle to you or you visit any of their Vending Machines in any of the following cities, Frisco, Oklahoma City, Tempe, Tampa, Bridgeville, Warrensville Heights, San Antonio, Kansas City, Raleigh, Nashville, Atlanta, Westminster, Austin, Gaithersburg, Oak Brook, Memphis, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami, Birmingham, Jacksonville, Greensboro, Charlotte, Ontario, Orlando, or Indianapolis. The interesting part of this pickup process is the presence of Carvana’s staff who will be there to give you any kind of assistance that you may need.

Owner’s Manual

At your request, Carvana will send a digital copy of your car’s manual after your purchase from their store. This will enable you to have all the necessary information concerning your car at your fingertips. The good news is that it costs you no extra money to get this manual.

All Carvana’s Cars Are Certified

Carvana does not just buy or sell any car, they build their customers’ trusts by ensuring that every car on their inventory is in a very sound condition. They achieve this feat through their rigorous inspection and reconditioning activity. Carvana certifies their vehicles after they must have inspected and reconditioned them.

150-Point Inspection

In order to ensure the safety of their customers, and increase customers’ confidence in their products, Carvana puts each of their vehicles through what they refer to as 150-Point inspection. During this inspection, everything about the vehicle is well inspected, examined, and scrutinized to ensure that they are all in good shape.

Things such as the thickness of brake pads, Bluetooth compatibility, Exterior paint quality, and many more are inspected during this 150-Point Inspection. Moreover, during this inspection, Carvana also check all the car fluids and change out the vehicle’s oil if need be. All these are done by Carvana at no extra cost to the buyer, and to put the car in perfect condition.

How to Get in Contact with Carvana

As Carvana’s customer, you are in absolute control of the entire purchase process. You can make purchases on Carvana at any time of your choice because their online store is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can access the site from your mobile phone, tablet or computer while at the comfort of your home. You can spend as much time as you wish on the site while you scrutinize the vehicles in order to make your choice.

To be able to see everything for yourself, check out the Carvana Site at www.carvana.com.

More about Carvana

In order to encourage customers from outside their extended service area, Carvana subsidizes their airfare. Therefore, a customer who doesn’t live within Carvana’s extended service area can still buy their favourite vehicle on Carvana and collect it from any of Carvana’s vending machines.

As a customer from outside their extended service area, Carvana subsidizes your airfare to your chosen Vending Machine at $200. Moreover, white-glove transportation to your chosen Vending Machine is also arranged by this amazing used-car dealer. With these arrangements, the cost of getting to the Vending Machine and picking up your car is reduced.

Carvana puts a lot of efforts to ensure that they present only sound cars to their customers, and besides, they will still take the car from you without complaining if you desire to return it within 7 days after purchase. Buying from Carvana helps you to cut out dealerships which invariably reduces costs. Apart from reducing the cost of acquiring a vehicle, buying from Carvana also gives you a better experience by giving you access to premium cars.

As we mentioned earlier, Carvana gives its customers 7 days money-back guarantee. This guarantee allows the buyer to test the car as much as he wishes and then make his final decision. The customer can get his money back if for any reason he opts to return the car. That notwithstanding, Carvana also gives another guarantee which they refer to as “Worry-Free” Guarantee.

This limited warranty covers all mechanical assemblies within 100 days or a distance of 4,189 miles. This means that Carvana will take care of any mechanical fault developed by your vehicle within the first 100 days of purchase from Carvana, and as long as you have not driven it for more than a distance of 4,189 miles.

Carvana will not take responsibility if you drive over the said distance before the first 100 days. They chose 4,189 miles because it is expected that a consumer should drive an average of 41.89 miles per day.

In partnership with CarFax, Carvana provides you with a detailed history report of all the vehicle on their site. They do this in order to provide their customers with full transparency into the history of the vehicles on their site. To access the history of any of the vehicles on Carvana you need to click on “Details and Specs” section of the vehicle details page. Remember! You don’t pay anything in order to have access to Carvana site.

Carvana provided shopping tools on their site to help their customers have a nice shopping experience. These shopping tools help buyers to shop without hassle, but with so much ease. The shopping tools include:

• Carvana Car Finder which helps customers to easily locate their choice vehicle among the over 11,000 vehicles on the site.
• Loan Calculator which helps customers to calculate how much they need to budget for their favourite car on Carvana.
• Trade-in Estimator takes you directly to the page where you can do your trade-in with Carvana.

Sell or Trade-in on Carvana

As mentioned earlier, you can sell or trade-in your car on Carvana with ease. This can be done in 3 simple steps.

Step 1

Get Your Offer

In this first step, Carvana will require you to provide some details about your vehicle after which they will make an offer to you within 2 minutes.

Step 2

Sell or Trade-in

Once you accept Carvana’s offer, you will either sell the vehicle to Carvana or you trade it for a new vehicle. Whether you choose a trade-in option or the sell option, Carvana will come and pick up the vehicle.

Step 3

Receive Payment

If you choose to sell the vehicle, Carvana will pay you up, but if you choose the trade-in option, Carvana will give you the key to your new car.

Financing with Carvana

Carvana helps its customers to acquire the vehicle they desire through their financing program. This financing makes it easier for these customers to get the exact vehicle they want, but such a customer would be required to qualify for a Carvana auto loan. Once you qualify for this auto loan you can check through the vehicles in their vast inventory of different kinds of vehicles, each having an entirely personalized financing term.

How Carvana’s financing Works

To enjoy Carvana’s financing, you’ll have to first refer someone to buy from them. Once the one you referred purchases a vehicle from Carvana and does not return it within the seven-day return window, you and your friend will receive a handsome reward from Carvana.

They will give you a check of $100, whereas the friend you referred will receive $500 off the price of the vehicle he or she purchased from Carvana. Moreover, Carvana hands a paper referral coupon to their customers whenever they buy cars from them. If you give this referral coupon to your friend and he buys a car from Carvana, you will receive a $100 worth of check.

                            Summary of Carvana Customer Reviews from other Sites

Trustpilot -Carvana Customer Review

According to Trustpilot, 2771 customers reviewed Carvana. 57% of this number confirmed that Carvana is an excellent platform to buy used-car by giving them 5 stars in a 5 Star Rating. 11% of the number said that Carvana is a great place to buy used-car by giving them 4 stars out 5-star rating. 5% rated Carvana average by giving them 3 Stars out of 5 stars, whereas 6% of the number said that Carvana is a poor place to buy cars by giving them 2 stars out 5 stars. Finally, 21% rated them bad by giving them 1 star in a 5-star rating.

As we can see, the positive reviews outweigh the negative ones. So, we can confidently opine that Carvana is a wonderful and amazing platform to buy your next car.

DealerRater -Carvana Customer Reviews

There were 2824 Carvana reviews on DealerRater at the time of writing this article. Out of this number, the majority of them rated Carvana excellent by giving them 5 stars in a 5-star rating. In summary, the entire reviewers gave Carvana 4.3 stars out of 5 stars. This further confirms customers’ satisfaction with Carvana services and products.

ConsumerAffairs Carvana Review

The Consumer Affairs site gave a summary of the reviews giving by customers on their site to be at an average of 2.5 stars out of 5 stars. This review rate was decided according to 119 total ratings that was submitted to their site. However, most of the 6 top ratings on they said to have found about Carvana were excellent. Of which 3 persons gave all 5-star rating to them and 2 persons gave a rating of 4 stars out of the 5-star ratings.

BBB Carvana complaints review

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) who have said to have accredited Carvana since June, 2015 gave their analysis based on the total complaints from customers. Between 2017 to 2020, BBB has recorded a total number of 745 complaints of which 504 of the complaints were resolved and closed within a year.

The nature and types of complaints laid against Carvana are as follows;

• Advertising and sales have a total number of 92 complaints
• Billing and collections have a total number of 29 complaints
• Delivery issues have a total number of 88 complaints
• Guarantee or Warranty has a total number of 64 complaints
• Product or Services have a total number of 472 complaints.

I would say that for Carvana to have been able to resolve that amount of issues within a year makes them reliable to some extent.

Carvana Customer’s Feedbacks and Complaints

Now let’s see some of these review, complaints and feedback from customers from a personalized point of view.

• Marshy Says

For me, I’s say my experience was one of the easiest and painless ones. Within 8 days of ordering the car, it was delivered. One special thing I love here is that there were no hidden charges. Their customer service was quite responsive. I can say this site is transparent enough. I would be recommending them and at the same time rate them all 5 stars.

• Greg Says

I liked the fact that I didn’t have to deal with a middle man or salesman. The whole process wasn’t that tasking. I’m definitely patronizing them next time. I will give them 5 out of 5.

• Bry7 Says

I got the car in the worst condition than I ever imagined. All tires were so muddy, dirty, and bald. They couldn’t even as much put in new oil. I’ll just give them 2 stars.

• Yetf Says

It’s been over 2 months since I made bought car from Carvana and they are yet to deliver to me. Its been a total waste of my time, and money. No recommendation of any sort will be given by me and no rating.

• Hangy Says

I’m so pleased with my experience here. My 2019 model-car arrived in excellent condition with nice gas mileage. They had a nice and polite driver who advised me to totally inspect my car. I’m so totally using this site again. I am recommending them to anyone who is eligible to buy from them and at the same time will rate them 5 out of 5.

More Carvana Feedback

ALSO SEE: Alamo Car Rental Review

Conclusion

Used-car purchases have been simplified by this amazing platform known as Carvana. Judging by the number of years they have been in existence and the reviews from their customers, Carvana is invariably a wonderful option for car purchases.

Their existence is legitimate, and their processes are hassle-free. With their 7-days money return policy, you have no reason to fear. The only challenge here is that this great opportunity is only available to those residents within the united states of America.