Carvana Sends Wrong Car to Buyer and It Turned Into a Nightmare
Ru Chen
· 4 min read
Carvana is in hot water already. The online
car dealer
lost its license to sell vehicles in North Carolina for violating dealer licensing laws. It sounds like the problems aren’t localized to one state. A woman from New Jersey
went through a nightmare scenario that was worse than a normal scam. 
A troubling purchase from Carvana, an online car dealer
It all started when Shantiya LeMay of South Orange, NJ, needed a vehicle.
Her old one had a faulty transmission and she didn’t want to keep using her daughter’s car. Her job as a patient care technician meant she had to drive more than two hours of commute each day.
She thought Carvana would be a good place to buy a vehicle. Carvana is an online-only used car dealer that delivers vehicles straight to your home.
She ordered a 2017 GMC Terrain on March 31. That process was simple enough. She arranged the financing and insurance. The only thing left was to wait for the delivery, and then she’d be able to drive the SUV.
For a while, it seemed like a solid purchase. But abruptly, on July 14, the SUV got towed. Police noticed that the truck’s VIN didn’t match its temporary plate, which looked very suspicious.
When she tried to get the GMC Terrain back, she received shocking news. The vehicle she had been driving for months now wasn’t the same one she had purchased from Carvana.
Carvana sent the wrong truck. Because LeMay didn’t have the right vehicle, her paperwork was all for nothing. She was driving this whole time uninsured.
She couldn’t even get the SUV out of the tow yard because technically, this vehicle wasn’t hers.
Let Jerry find your price in only 45 seconds
No spam · No long forms · No fees
Carvana’s shocking response to sending the wrong truck
MORE: Used Car Shopping: Consumer Reports Says to Pay More Attention to Vehicle Age Rather Than Mileage
According to reports, Carvana wasn’t just unhelpful. They made everything worse.
They essentially told LeMay it was her fault. They said she should’ve noticed it was the wrong vehicle because it had a different mileage from what she’d seen online.
Apparently, it was a 2018 GMC model instead of a 2017 one. It was not evident. Carvana did say they would pay the $185 tow fee and the daily storage charge of $26.
The company also offered her $1,500 to cover car rental fees. That way LeMay would have something to drive in the meantime.
That sounds dandy, but the problem was that the money ran dry. LeMay had to borrow cars from friends and pay for rideshare services.
More than a month passed and Carvana still didn’t process the necessary paperwork. And they refused to help her anymore.
It gets even worse
LeMay then found out that her payments for the car weren’t being recorded properly by Bridgecrest Financial, Carvana’s sister company. Funds were taken from her account already, however. Even after showing proof of payment, the company didn’t correct the errors.
LeMay needed her job to survive. She couldn’t afford to lose it, which meant she had to pay out of pocket for a lot of rental cars.
Because of this nightmare, LeMay couldn’t make her August loan and had to delay a college tuition payment too.
In the end, Carvana finally agreed to help LeMay sort everything out. The company offered her a "goodwill gesture" of $1,840.
LeMay wasn’t satisfied. Her life had been turned upside down, all because of trying to get a vehicle from Carvana’s service.
How to get reliable insurance
MORE: Customer Service in the Rental Car Industry Seems Low
It’s important to stay protected and make sure you have adequate coverage for your car.
In case of an accident, a malicious scam, or other unfortunate incidents, it’s important to know what your options are.
Jerry
is a licensed insurance broker that can help you find the insurance you need. Jerry can even sort out all the paperwork for you so you don’t have to worry about potential mishaps.
