Back story - I’m selling my old car. I put it on the car sales website before Christmas, and that was a bad time to do it because Christmas, but I’ve had a few messages from interested people but nobody yet come up to see it. One of the sticking points was that I didn’t yet have a roadworthy certificate - they only last 30 days, so I didn’t want to get one before I figured out if my asking price was a reasonable one that people would actually be interested in paying. It’s now due to get one on Thursday
Yesterday I got a message from someone who lives about 45 minutes away, saying they’d buy it once it had the roadworthy if I drove the car down to them, and then they’d pay for an Uber back.
I’m thinking of knocking back this offer on the grounds that it sounds kinda dodgy … I get down there with the car and then I’ve invested about an hour of my life in the trip, and probably what happens is they ‘accidentally’ discover they’ve only got half the purchase price together and will I take that, blah blah blah.
But can anyone think of any reason why it might not be scammy to want me to do the drive, rather than them simply taking transport here? I know some people don’t like driving in the city, but they’re still in the city, just a different part of it
Well, if it is a nice drive, why not? Maybe there is a nice restaurant on the way. But if you are thinking about getting your asking price, the chips are in the buyer’s basket.
It need not be a scam of any kind. He could be trying to guard himself against the risk that he’ll pay to travel to your place, only to find that the advertisement has been less than completely candid about the condition of the car and so he doesn’t want to buy it after all, or at any rate not at a price that you are willing to accept, and then he’ll have to pay to travel home again. He reckons that if you believe your car is as described, and is a good purchase at the price you are asking, why wouldn’t you bring it to a willing buyer? And if you are reluctant to do that, he takes it as a signal that you may have some reason to think that a likely purchaser, on actually seeing the car, will decide not to proceed.
If he’s willing to pay a 5% non-refundable deposit up front and agree to a safe, neutral meeting site then yeah, I’d roll the dice and deliver it to him.
Tell him: “I’ll meet you in the police station parking lot in your town. My nephew is a sergeant there, so I’ll have lunch with him and then meet you in the parking lot at 1pm to sell the car”.
If he immediately cuts off all communication with you, you’ve got your answer.
And if he doesn’t, that’s still a good place to meet.
What Dag Otto said. Always turn that kind of offer around.
Me: Selling car on Craigslist.
Buyer: I really want your car. I’ll send you a cashier’s check with an extra $500 to pay the hauler picking it up!
Me: Send your hauler the check and he can pay me cash when he gets the car.
Buyer: I can’t do that because reasons.
Me: Sorry. No sale.
ETA: Also what you suspect. Buyer doesn’t have full purchase price but is counting on you to accept less because of the time you have invested.
There have been a number of instances where a seller going to meet a buyer has been robbed or murdered. It’s rare, but it does happen.
Meet at a neutral location, or not at all. Parking lot of a police station is a very good choice. Keeps honest people honest and non-honest people elsewhere.
As it happens, a couple of nice English backpacker/travellers came this afternoon, and we now have a handshake deal to do the transfer as soon as my forms are in order.
So it looks like Lay-Zee-Boy is out of luck in any case!
A number of police departments now offer a service to buyers/sellers where you can make exchanges with the knowledge that security cameras are monitoring the transactions.
I have a working high-pressure sodium grow lamp, complete with hood and power transformer that was once used for raising vegetable seedlings. I thought about posting it on Craigslist with any transaction to go down at a police station. Then the reality of why that probably was not a good idea set in.
I’ve done that on both sides of the transaction, buyer and seller… The simple reason is legality of driving the vehicle. If he went to you and bought the car, he still has to go to the DMV and transfer title and registration docs and plates and get insurance before legally driving it.
So he’d be stuck coming back a second time to get the car, or trailering it back.
But you can simply drive your car there and leave it in his driveway while removing the plates to take with you to return to the DMV (In my state you must do this or risk all sorts of badness).
I’ve also done option C, to meet at a DMV parking lot or near one. They pay me, I do the title transfer, remove the plates and go; they go inside and get title transfer and new plates, enter the VIN for insurance coverage addition on their phone app, affix the new plates and registration sticker to the car, and drive off.
