BALTIMORE — After paying tens of thousands of dollars through an online car auction, several customers of Reposmaxcomp said they didn’t receive their auction item or a response from the company.
Kristin Cirullo’s husband first came across Reposmaxcomp in an ad online.
“Facebook Marketplace comes up, and he's a car guy, and he sees a car. He's like, ‘Oh, that's a cool car, let me click on it. I want to look at it,” Cirullo said.
It brought him to Reposmaxcomp, an auction site advertising cars, trucks, boats, motor homes, classic cars, and heavy equipment at bargain prices.
“They're using the excuse that it's a repossession and they're just trying to satisfy the lien,” said Cirullo.
Her and her husband bid on two Mustangs and won. After receiving the invoices, they sent the bank transfers and were told they'd be delivered on October 20.
“How much did you wire?” WMAR-2 News Mallory Sofastaii asked Cirullo.
“$43,000,” she responded.
But on October 20, the cars weren’t delivered and the company stopped responding.
“We tried to recall our wire but of course that never works. Because they kept responding, we talked to them on the telephone, they were emailing with us, everything looked good. It was amazing how in depth this was,” Cirullo recalled.
And she felt like they thoroughly researched the company before sending any money. They even confirmed the escrow company, Gruberg Auto Warehouse LLC, was registered with the Florida Department of State. However, the business location is a virtual office address and it only recently registered in August.
“Looking back, what would you have done differently?” Sofastaii asked Cirullo.
“I would not have let them push me. They say to complete this bid so someone else doesn't lose it, you need to wire the money within two days,” Cirullo responded. “We should have asked more questions of more people before we were excited about this.”
Another customer sent Sofastaii documents showing he wired over $16,000 and received the same shipment date, but his 2021 Ram 1500 Big Horn pickup truck never arrived.
WMAR-2 News looked closer at some of the cars offered for sale and listed prices, including a 2018 Range Rover with a buy now price of $35,960, and bids starting as low as $23,970. We found the same car with the same VIN is currently being sold by a different dealer for nearly $60,000.
“Making bids online, it gets kind of exciting, we get caught in the emotion of I was successful in getting that bid. And that may spur us on to then not really think clearly, not do our research, but just put that payment in because we won,” said Angie Barnett, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Greater Maryland.
The BBB recently received a handful of complaints about Reposmaxcomp, which claims to be located in Baltimore, but when WMAR-2 News visited Redwood Tower, the listed address on their website, the business wasn’t there.
“We believe that this is the way they do it. They open up a website, run it for a couple of months, enough complaints get out there, then they take the website down and do it again,” Barnett said.
WMAR-2 News called Reposmaxcomp, left voicemails, and sent emails asking about the Cirullo's purchase. We haven't heard back and the website no longer appears to be working.
We also asked if they're affiliated with another online auction company, DIFFReposcorp, claiming to be at a different address in Baltimore, but once again we couldn't find that business at that address and the phone number doesn't connect. WMAR-2 News reached out to DIFFReposcorp via email but hasn’t yet received a response.
The Cirullos say they were told by a Reposmaxcomp representative that the company has been around for several years, but according to website domain information, the website was first registered this October in Iceland. The same goes for DIFFReposcorp. We also couldn't find any business registered by either name with the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation.
Cirullo added that she had to provide a copy of her driver’s license to bid on the website. She’s since frozen her credit over concerns of identity theft.
When buying anything online, whether it's a car or something less expensive, be sure to use a payment method that offers fraud protection such as a credit card or payment service with buyer protection.
Click here for more information from the Federal Trade Commission on what to know when buying used cars from dealers, as well as additional information from the Better Business Bureau.
If you’ve lost money to an online car auction website, click here to report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
