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Buying: How it works

You want to buy a car and there is something you are not sure about? Find your answers here.

Login & Registration Expand All

In order to bid or buy on HeartBids, you must first sign up as a regular user. As soon as you are signed up, you can comment and ask questions under auctions and add cars to your watchlist - but you cannot buy or sell vehicles.

After sign-up, you can then verify as a buyer and seller at any time in your account by clicking on the "verify now" button. This will allow you to use HeartBids without any restrictions.

With a short sign-up you can comment under ads and blog posts, but not bid or buy. With the subsequent verification you can also bid and sell. For private users there is no difference between registering as a buyer or seller.

However, for legal reasons we have to ask commercial sellers for additional information if they want to sell vehicles. If commercial users only want to bid at this stage, they can indicate this and thus accelerate the registration process. The registration as a commercial seller can be made up for later at any time.

Since a free escrow service is included on HeartBids for every customer, our users must verify their identity in compliance with EC Directive 2005/60/EC on the prevention of money laundering. For commercial users, the legal requirements are stricter than for private users. To spare our private users this additional effort, we distinguish here. Furthermore, commercial sellers have an extensive duty to inform their customers (terms and conditions, privacy policy, right of withdrawal, imprint). We provide legal text templates for commercial users that they can fill in. Of course, you can also upload your own legal texts if you already have some.
To verify as a buyer, HeartBids requires a few additional pieces of information for billing purposes. Also, the process involves registering with our escrow agent. All you need is an official identification document (ID card, passport, driver’s license). If you have this at hand, the entire process is usually completed in a few minutes.

There is no difference for private users here. Registered users with a fully verified account can always both bid and sell.

For commercial users, too, a simultaneous verification as buyer and seller is possible at any time. For this you only need to register as a seller, because registered sellers can also bid at any time. However, please note that registering as a commercial seller requires a more extensive KYC (Know-Your-Customer) process due to legal requirements to prevent money laundering (EC Directive 2005/60/EC). So if you want to bid as quickly as possible, you should verify as a bidder first. Specially for this case, we have created the option to verify as a commercial seller anytime later.

Auction & Bidding Expand All

To be able to place a bid, you must be a registered bidder. If you have already signed up to HeartBids you can complete the verification here. Once that is done, you can place your first bid at any time by clicking on the white "Place Your Bid" button within the auction.
Bids can be placed by clicking on the white "Place Your Bid" button on the right side of the auctions.

With an instant bid, the amount entered is immediately confirmed as a bid. This means you can make large bid increments without numerous lower bids in between.

Absentee bidding allows you to set a maximum bid up to which bids are automatically placed for you. In this case, the absentee bid always increases by the current minimum bid. Absentee bids are especially interesting if you can not actively participate at the end of an auction and want to bid in absentia.

Please note that if there are several identical highest bids, the bidder who placed their bid first will get the bid!
In principle, if there are several identical maximum bids, the bidder who placed their bid first will get the bid! This can be the case, for example, if several users have set an identical maximum absentee bid. Another scenario is that a bidder places an instant bid and is "outbid" by another bidder with an identical bid, because the latter had already set an identical maximum absentee bid before.
To bid, you must verify as a bidder. The registration process on HeartBids also includes registering with our free escrow. To protect our users and to comply with EU legal requirements, your identity must be verified during this process. HeartBids adheres to the highest privacy standards and never publicly shares information from the identity verification process. We only share whether the verification was successful.
No, bids are binding and cannot be withdrawn.
The minimum bids increment depending on the status of the auction. Up to 50.000,00 € the minimum bid is 250 €, between 50.001 € to 100.000 € it is 500 € and from 100.001 € the minimum bid is 1.000 €.
Auctions usually take 7 days. Only in exceptional cases do auctions last longer than 7 days. If a bid is placed within the last 2 minutes of an auction, the auction will be extended by another 2 minutes.
Suppose you are from the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland. In that case, you can bid and buy on HeartBids without any problems. Please contact us if you are located in another country and want to bid.
The countdown is extended by another 2 minutes with each new bid placed within the last 2 minutes before the auction ends. This is intended to avoid slow or interrupted Internet connections preventing bids from being placed. It also ensures that no bidder is forced into a rash and ill-considered bidding process. Another important reason is that HeartBids can prevent Auction Sniping and increase fairness on HeartBids.
Once you have won an auction, you will receive an email from our escrow agent asking you to deposit the vehicle price and the commission into the escrow account set up for this transaction only. Simultaneously, you will be able to contact the seller and arrange the vehicle transfer. The seller will be informed by the escrow agent as soon as you have deposited the money. At this moment, a 14-day payout period begins, after which the money is automatically paid out to the seller unless you object to the payout. If you need a longer payout period, e.g. because of long transportation, you can stop the automatic payout. However, you are obliged to release the money as soon as you receive the vehicle and it matches the description.
A successful auction on HeartBids is a legally binding sale, and every bid is a legally binding offer. Any sale of the vehicle outside HeartBids before the end of the auction is a violation of our T&Cs and German law. The same applies if the seller changes their mind after the auction.

Reserve Prices Expand All

Reserve prices are a price optionally set by the seller below which the vehicle may not be sold. Once the minimum price is reached, the vehicle will be sold to the highest bidder at the end of the auction.
After an auction has started, the seller can lower the minimum price but not raise it.
You can tell if an auction has a reserve price by the corresponding icon under the "Place Your Bid" button in the right margin.
Minimum prices are not announced. However, it will be displayed in the bid overview and below the "Place Your Bid" button if the minimum price has been reached.
Should a seller decide to offer a vehicle in the Make-A-Deal section after an unsuccessful auction, each interested party can submit up to three offers. The seller must accept or reject them within 48 hours, or they will automatically expire. The free escrow is also included here. Alternatively, sellers can offer their vehicle in an auction again after a short waiting period.

Talking with the seller Expand All

Potential buyers can publicly ask sellers questions in the comments below the auction at any time. The answers of the seller are highlighted. So everyone can see the answer to a question that you might have wanted to ask the seller yourself or hadn’t thought about.

Transparency is a big concern for HeartBids. Also, for this reason, we want to keep all conversations between bidders and sellers public. No one should have an unfair knowledge advantage over other bidders.

If the auction is successful, we will establish the connection between the buyer and the seller. There is no contract intended between losing bidders and sellers.
Direct contact between buyer and seller is not provided in this case. If the minimum price has not been reached, the seller can offer their vehicle in the Make-A-Deal section. Interested parties can submit up to 3 price offers here, which the seller must agree to or reject within 48 hours. The free escrow is also included for Make-A-Deal listings.
The organization of the handover of the vehicle is the responsibility of the buyer and seller.

Make-A-Deal Expand All

Make-A-Deal listings are an alternative to classic auctions. Sellers can offer their vehicles here straight away or after their vehicle has failed to reach its reserve price at auction. Interested parties can submit up to three offers to sellers. The seller must accept or reject them within 48 hours. Otherwise, the offers expire and the interested party can place new ones. Once an agreement is reached, the vehicle can be paid for and transferred immediately through escrow.
No, the seller decides whether their vehicle is offered as a Make-A-Deal listing or not. Alternatively, they can offer it again at auction after a short waiting period.

Payment & Fees Expand All

The buyer’s commission is 6% (incl. 19% VAT) of the auction proceeds or at least 600€ (incl. 19% VAT). With increasing auction results, the percentage of the commission drops. The exact amount of commission can be found in our pricing overview
The commission fee is automatically added to the vehicle price to be paid into the escrow account. So buyers do not have to transfer the commission separately. However, you will receive a separate invoice from HeartBids for the commission payment.
HeartBids focuses on security. That's why a free escrow service is included with every vehicle purchase on HeartBids. The escrow service is integrated into HeartBids and allows convenient and secure payment directly through the platform. Due to the transaction amount, only manual bank transfers to the escrow account are accepted. Please make sure that the amount and purpose of the transfer are correct. Otherwise, the transfer cannot be assigned and delays will occur. If you already have credit with our escrow partner Paylax, you can also use this to pay for the vehicle.
Using the Paylax is free of charge for HeartBids users.
Our currency of choice is Euro (EUR). If you want to pay in another currency, you are welcome to use the service of wise.com to deposit money to the escrow account.
Only professional sellers are obliged to issue an invoice.
Buyers will receive an invoice from HeartBids for the commission paid .

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