I’ve put a deposit on a car this morning with an independent trader. The balance is a significant amount of money and the trader has asked for this via bank transfer. Now this doesn’t seem unreasonable, and would be my default method. However he’s said he would like it three days ahead of pickup to make sure it’s not caught by the bank as a fraudulent transaction. This makes me feel a little uneasy.

I viewed the car at his home, didn’t visit his trade place because it’s having building work done. He has a website, which shows at least one other car at the same address. I’ve even spoken to my bank to check this request seems reasonable, and she seemed quite happy with it.

Am I being super cautious, or is this normal now that bankers drafts aren’t as secure as they used to be?

Meet him at a bank with cash when you pick the car up.

At his home because work being done wouldn’t fill me with confidence.

have you seen the car?

Yep I’ve seen and driven the car, I’ve been in his house, and I have the bottom of the V5, and a receipt for my deposit.

Am I being super cautious

Not really. Meet with Cash at bank would be my preferred method.

Either that or meet him at my bank and pass his details over the counter and make a transfer in person.

Both safe that way.

Yep I’ve seen and driven the car, I’ve been in his house, and I have the bottom of the V5, and a receipt for my deposit.

Starting to think the bank is the best option.

notify the branch you need to withdraw a large amount of cash so they can order it, our local branch almost ran out of cash a few weeks ago,

also why not pay by debit card i did when i bought a van about 7 years ago, other customers looked surprised when he typed in 9,000 quid into the terminal and asked me to confirm the amount.

Notify your bank that you’ll be making a big payment for a car, tell them to release payment there and then without going through the checks, if they decide to check it you’ll need to then do the following, all pre the sale BTW.
You and him drive to your Bank, do the transfer in front of both you/him and the clerk, get the reference on the transfer made as the reg number and if possible in the notes (depends on what CRM your bank uses) add in there his name, the car, the deposit paid and balance.
You have the bottom of the V5, get him to hand the keys over in the bank, drive him home.

It’s that simple.

The transfer should take no more than 15mins, if it’s more then yes you may have to answer a few questions about the transfer but you’ve already noted all the information above so that will/should curtail any delays.

If I were you I would not transfer any money pre sale, dealer or not.

It’ll cost him a small fortune to pay cash into his business account- 1% or £90 if I remember rightly.

He’s apparently cautious because he had someone pay for a car via bank transfer, and later the police turned up to tell him the money was obtained via fraudulent methods. By this point the guy had disappeared with the car. The bank fraud checks obviously didn’t pick anything up.

I figured if the money was showing in his account, then thats it cleared…

Do not transfer before sale. What bike bouy says. Something don’t seem right. No premises? Web sites do not confer legitimacy.

When I bought a new car three weeks ago I used my debit card to pay on the spot. I’d already transfers the money from my savings. Paid, drove car away after paperwork at the premises

Thanks, I’ll say that I’ll only pay via debit card or go to the bank with him.