Deposit on car before pickup

Hi Raewyn. It largely depends on what was said on the auction.

If the seller had a stated condition that the car needed to be paid for in full before collection then you will have to abide by that.

If there was nothing like that stated, and the seller had cash as a payment option then you are completely within your rights to pay upon collection instead.

How did you get on?

We walked away from the trade from trademe supports advice.

The seller refused to provide a vin or rego until a deposit was paid, he didn’t supply one in the auction even though he was asked too. He kept refusing to supply any info on the car until we had paid a deposit claiming that is how he has always done business and that he was a dealership. So once he disclosed that he was a dealership consumer law comes in and basically we had every right not to hand over payment until viewing the car and checking it was as described.
We did eventually get a vin number from him and the car was not complied, and did not have wof or rego. Was basically a fresh import so not as described in the auction and that’s when we were told we could walk away from the trade.

Trademe have been amazing through all of it, big props to their customer support team!