Terms of Service

1. About these terms

These Terms of Service are an agreement between you and CAuto ("CAuto", "we", "us"), based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They cover your use of cautoauction.com and everything on it, including auctions, cars for sale, messages and payments (together, the "site").

By creating an account, signing in, or using the site, you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you don't agree, please don't use the site.

2. Who can use CAuto

• You must have reached the age of majority in your province or territory (18 or 19, depending on where you live) and be able to enter a binding contract.
• You must give us true, current information and keep it up to date.
• If you use CAuto for a business, such as a dealership, you confirm you are allowed to act for that business and that it holds any licence it needs to sell vehicles where it operates.
• You may not use CAuto if we have previously closed your account.

3. Your account

You are responsible for everything that happens under your account. Keep your password private, use one account per person, and tell us right away at support@cautoauction.com if you think someone else has used it. You can sign in with email and password or with Google.

4. What CAuto does and doesn't do

CAuto provides an online place where sellers list cars and buyers bid on them or reserve them. We review every listing before it goes live, run the auctions, and handle the CAuto fees described below.

CAuto is not the buyer or the seller of any car, and we are not a party to the sale contract between them. We do not own, inspect, store or deliver the cars, and we do not hold or transfer the money paid for a car. When a sale happens, the buyer and seller arrange payment, paperwork, safety inspection, registration and pickup or shipping directly with each other.

Our review of a listing is a check that it looks complete and appropriate for the site. It is not an inspection, an appraisal or a guarantee of the car's condition, history, title or value.

5. Selling a car

Listing fee

Listing a car costs a one-time fee of $30 CAD, paid when you submit the car for review. If we accept the car, the $30 covers our review and your listing and is not refunded. If we decline it, the $30 is refunded to your card.

Your promises as a seller

• You own the car, or you have the legal right to sell it.
• Your listing is accurate and complete, including mileage, VIN, condition, accident and damage history, modifications, and any known problems. Photos must be of the actual car.
• You disclose any lien, loan, lease or other claim on the car, and you will clear it, or arrange for it to be cleared, before or at the time of sale.
• You follow the rules in your province for selling a vehicle, including any required disclosures, safety or inspection certificates, and vehicle history reports.

Review, reserves and running the auction

An admin reviews every car and may accept it, decline it with a reason, or ask for changes. We may edit a listing to fix obvious errors or formatting, and we may remove any listing at any time if we believe it breaks these terms or the law.

You choose a starting bid, how long the auction runs (3 to 14 days), and whether to set a reserve price. If you set a reserve and bidding ends below it, you don't have to sell. If you don't set a reserve, the listing shows NO RESERVE and the car sells to the highest bidder.

You must sell to the winner

If the auction ends at or above your reserve, or the car has no reserve, you agree to sell the car to the winning bidder for the winning bid, on the terms in your listing. You may not end an auction early to sell the car somewhere else, bid on your own car, or ask anyone to bid for you to raise the price. If you don't complete a sale you are required to make, we may refund the buyer's fee to the buyer, keep your listing fee, and limit or close your account.

6. Bidding

• A bid is binding. Each bid is an offer to buy the car at that price. Once placed, a bid can't be cancelled or lowered. Only bid what you are ready to pay.
• Bids must be at or above the minimum shown on the car page.
• Anti-sniping. If a bid is placed in the last 2 minutes, the auction is extended so it ends 2 minutes after that bid. This can happen more than once.
• The highest bid when the auction ends wins, as long as it meets any reserve.
• We may cancel a bid, or end or restart an auction, if we find an error, a technical problem, fraud or a breach of these terms. If we do, we will tell the affected people.
• The time shown by our servers is the official time for when bids are placed and when an auction ends.

7. The $5,000 bid hold

Before your first bid on a car, you add a payment card and we place a hold of $5,000 CAD on it through our payment provider, Stripe. This is a hold, not a charge. The money stays in your account but your bank sets it aside.

• One hold covers all of your bids on that car. A new car needs a new hold.
• If you don't win, or the auction ends without a sale (for example the reserve wasn't met), your hold is released shortly after the auction ends. Your bank decides how fast the released amount shows as available, which can take a few business days.
• If you win, the buyer's fee is taken from your hold and the rest is released.
• Card holds last about 7 days. On longer auctions, you authorize us to renew the hold on your saved card before it runs out. Your bank may briefly show two holds while the old one drops off. If a renewal fails, your hold shows as expired and you'll need to confirm a new hold before your next bid. Bids you already placed still count.

8. The buyer's fee

If you win an auction that ends with a sale, you pay CAuto a buyer's fee of 5% of the winning bid, with a minimum of $500 and a maximum of $5,000 CAD. For example, a $30,000 winning bid has a $1,500 fee, a $6,000 winning bid has a $500 fee, and a $150,000 winning bid has a $5,000 fee.

The fee is taken from your $5,000 hold when the auction ends. If the hold can't be used, you authorize us to charge the fee to your saved card. The buyer's fee is paid to CAuto for using the marketplace. It is separate from the price of the car, which you pay to the seller.

The buyer's fee is earned when the auction ends with a sale and is not refundable if you change your mind or don't complete the purchase. We will refund it if the seller fails to complete the sale, or if we find the listing was materially misleading.

9. After an auction ends

When you win, a private deal opens in your Deals tab. You and the seller share contact details and how the car will be handed over, then agree on payment and pickup or shipping. We recommend that you:

• Confirm the seller's identity and ownership, and check for liens (in many provinces through the provincial personal property registry) before you pay.
• Use a traceable payment method, such as a bank draft or wire, and never send money to someone you haven't verified.
• Get a bill of sale and any safety or inspection certificate your province requires.

As a winning bidder you agree to complete the purchase within a reasonable time, normally 7 days unless you and the seller agree otherwise. The buyer is responsible for sales tax on the car, registration, insurance and getting the car home.

10. For sale cars and the $100 deposit

Some cars are listed at a fixed price under For sale. There is no bidding and no 5% buyer's fee on these cars.

• To reserve a car, you pay a $100 CAD deposit. This reserves the car for you, so other buyers can't start a purchase on it, and opens a private deal with the seller.
• If the car sells to you, the $100 is kept as CAuto's fee for the sale.
• If the sale doesn't go ahead, the $100 is refunded.
• You and the seller agree on payment, paperwork and pickup directly, the same way as an auction.

11. Payments, refunds and taxes

All CAuto fees are in Canadian dollars and are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your full card number. Refunds go back to the card you paid with. Applicable sales taxes, such as GST, HST, PST or QST, may be added to CAuto's fees where the law requires.

12. Messages and comments

• Public comments on a car page can be seen by everyone. Keep them about the car.
• Private messages between a buyer and a seller, and messages in your Deals tab, can be seen only by the people in the conversation and by CAuto staff when needed to keep the site safe, investigate a report, or resolve a dispute.
• Never send card numbers, passwords or government ID numbers in messages or comments.
• Don't use messages or comments to arrange a sale outside CAuto to avoid the buyer's fee or deposit for a car listed on CAuto. If you do, we may charge the fee that would have applied and close your account.
• We email you when you get a new message. Emails about your own bids, sales, deals and messages are part of the service.

13. Things you must not do

• Post false, misleading or stolen listings, photos or information.
• Place bids you don't intend to honour, bid on your own car, or work with others to raise or hold down prices.
• Harass, threaten, discriminate against, or spam other people.
• Use someone else's account or card, or create accounts to get around a suspension.
• Scrape, copy or resell the site's content, or use bots to bid or collect data.
• Try to break, overload or get around the security of the site.
• Use the site for anything illegal, including selling a vehicle you don't have the right to sell.

14. Your content

You keep ownership of the photos, videos, descriptions, comments and other content you post. You give CAuto a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence, for as long as the content is on the site and for a reasonable time afterward, to host, display, resize and share it in order to run and promote CAuto, including on our social media. You confirm you have the rights to everything you post. We may remove content that breaks these terms.

The CAuto name, logo and site design belong to CAuto. Please don't use them without our permission.

15. Vehicles are sold as described by the seller

Listings are written by sellers. CAuto does not make any promise about a car's condition, history, mileage, title, safety or value. Unless the seller gives you a written warranty, cars are sold as is. Nothing in these terms takes away any right you have under consumer protection or sale of goods laws that can't be waived.

16. Limits on our liability

We work hard to keep CAuto running and accurate, but the site is provided "as is" and "as available". We can't promise it will always be available, error free or secure.

As far as the law allows:

• CAuto is not liable for anything a buyer or seller does or fails to do, including the condition of a car, a failed sale, or a payment between them.
• CAuto is not liable for indirect or consequential losses, such as lost profits or lost opportunities.
• CAuto's total liability to you for any claim is limited to the CAuto fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim.

You agree to cover CAuto's reasonable costs, including legal fees, if a claim is made against us because of your listing, your content, or your breach of these terms. Some provinces don't allow some of these limits, so they may not all apply to you.

17. Suspending or closing accounts

You can stop using CAuto and ask us to close your account at any time by emailing support@cautoauction.com. Any sale you are already committed to must still be completed.

We may suspend or close an account, remove listings, or cancel bids if we reasonably believe someone has broken these terms, put others at risk, or acted fraudulently. Where we can, we'll tell you why.

18. Changes to the site and these terms

We may change the site and these terms as CAuto grows. If we make an important change, we will post the new terms here with a new date and tell you by email or on the site before it takes effect. Changes don't apply to auctions that already ended or to deals already reserved. If you keep using CAuto after a change takes effect, the new terms apply.

19. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of Nova Scotia and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the consumer laws of the province or territory where you live, and you may bring a claim in its courts.

If something goes wrong, please contact us first. Most problems can be fixed quickly. If we can't resolve it together, the courts of Nova Scotia will decide, unless your local consumer law gives you the right to go to your own courts.

If any part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies. These terms and our Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and CAuto about the site.