I had an extremely upsetting experience with Carvana, both in terms of their policies and how their…read morecustomer service treated me.
I began a purchase for a 2021 Land Rover Range Rover Velar through Carvana. On March 19, 2026, I received an email from Carvana that my order had been approved. Later that same day, before midnight, I decided I no longer wanted the vehicle and canceled the purchase. I then received another email from Carvana confirming that "Your vehicle purchase was canceled on March 19 at 11:58 p.m. EDT" and that my refund was being reviewed and processed. In other words, I canceled the same day I was approved, well within roughly 24 hours, and long before the car was ever shipped or in transit.
The issue is a 690‑dollar "nonrefundable" shipping fee. The day before, on March 18, 2026 at 5:46 p.m. EDT, Carvana emailed me saying they had "initiated your nonrefundable payment of $690.00" to cover shipping and labeled it a "Nonrefundable shipping charge" to my Citibank account. In a small note at the bottom of that email, they added that if I canceled my order by March 19, 2026 at 5:46 p.m. EDT, they would refund the shipping fee. While I did not cancel by that exact timestamp, I did cancel later on March 19--within about 24 hours of approval--and before any shipping actually began or any transport service was provided.
Despite the fact that my order was approved and canceled the same day and the vehicle never moved an inch, Carvana refused to refund the 690‑dollar shipping fee. When I contacted support via chat and spoke with an advocate named Amanda, I explained that the car was never shipped, that my purchase and cancellation happened within roughly 24 hours, and that I had emails confirming both approval and cancellation on March 19. Instead of looking at the situation reasonably, Amanda repeatedly hid behind the "nonrefundable" label and the technical 5:46 p.m. cutoff, showed no flexibility, and showed no understanding that they were keeping hundreds of dollars for a service that was never actually rendered. She thanked me for my "patience" while essentially refusing to help.
In my view, this is exactly how a policy becomes predatory: Carvana takes a large "nonrefundable" shipping fee up front, then keeps it even when a customer cancels quickly, the car is never shipped, and the company has not actually provided the service that fee is supposed to cover. It may be technically within their fine print, but it feels like they are profiting from customers' cancellations rather than acting in good faith. I will never buy a car from Carvana again, and I strongly encourage others to think very carefully before paying any shipping fee or relying on their customer service to treat you fairly.
