As the seller its not great going somewhere with 1k or more in cash on you and I was cautious when i did this

I insisted on his house as i explained I had cash on me and I was not meeting a complete stranger in an unlit car park.
We met at his I bought the car

I would be surprised if they were trying to case your house, (how do they know you don’t have wife sitting in the house).And TBH if I was buying a car I would like to see the sellers house.

Oh ffs

Pick up from the station, they know you are not at your house, they burgle it.

Casing the house? They could chose someone selling a 20k car. That way they are guaranteed it’ll have nice stuff inside?

What ways do you guys think?!! Are you all smoking the funny stuff.

Its a 1k car. Someone can ‘assume’ the OP isn’t exactly rocking a MTB crib 😀

Avoid!

I got stung by almost exactly the same sack and list £11k.

They will want to give you a bankers draft and it will look fine but will be a copy/fake. They will have a genuine one somewhere but be doing the same scam at the same time to lots of folk.

Your bank will credit you when the draft is handed in, then the money will be removed as it’s a fake.

Avoid!

I got stung by almost exactly the same sack and list £11k.

They will want to give you a bankers draft and it will look fine but will be a copy/fake. They will have a genuine one somewhere but be doing the same scam at the same time to lots of folk.

Your bank will credit you when the draft is handed in, then the money will be removed as it’s a fake.

Any other details? How similar was your experience to what I’ve described so far?

The only thing which will result in them getting the car will be £1k in cash.

Im just waiting for the results 🙂

The scam was identical, price negotiated on the phone, couldn’t make it, met at a train station! Too similar for coincidence!

Ever seen a bankers draft before?

No neither had I until I was offered the option on one. As such I met the bloke at his bank to see it handed over/arranged to collect at the sametime in person.

It really does look like something you could knock up with a office printer.

So why would you accept something like that and hand over the goods AT THE SAMETIME?

Same with a cheque- buyer offers you a cheque (better looking than a draft) -you’d naturally wait for it to clear before signing over a car.

So why on a bankers draft because you are told its ‘as good as money’.

Sorry if its abit insulting but to tell a seller its all fraud and that because you didn’t do due diligence yourself?

People would never ever sell bike frames or forks if they wore tinfoil hats.

I’ve handed over a few used frames before for decent amounts of cash and vice versa (as I only buy secondhand usually to fund my hobby).

Should the seller (or buyer) of £700 (just £300 less) be treated as a automatic scammer?

I’ve had a couple of dodgy sounding buyers- still met them and my fears evaporated sharpish once talking to them in person.

Twice I’ve been picked up from a train station. I don’t see that as being scammerish. How would you drive the car back if its just you otherwise?

I don’t mean to offend – not every private buyer and scammer are alike.

The scam was identical, price negotiated on the phone, couldn’t make it, met at a train station! Too similar for coincidence!

What value was the vehicle? What area of the country was this? Were you expecting cash and they turned up with a bankers draft?

The scam was identical, price negotiated on the phone, couldn’t make it, met at a train station! Too similar for coincidence!

My sale was identical too, paid cash and bought the car. Price negotiated on the phone, picked up from the train station. Too similar to be a coincidence!

Just because scammers exist, doesn’t mean everything is a scam.

People buy and sell cars every day without getting scammed, just make sure you protect yourself (cash/cancel insurance/receipt, etc) and everything will be fine.

Ring her and get a good description of the guy you are meeting, this is important as you need to pick him out of the crowd at a distance.
As he leaves the station looking for you take him out with a long range sniper rifle, its the only safe way to handle this situation.

.

Ring her and get a good description of the guy you are meeting, this is important as you need to pick him out of the crowd at a distance.
As he leaves the station looking for you take him out with a long range sniper rifle, its the only safe way to handle this situation.

You can’t be too careful, here’s some example footage of some scammers in action at a station.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUd5RPVDjPY[/video]

Get The Asset on standby.

People think bankers drafts are as good as cash but they can be stolen or forged just the same as cheques.

Bankers drafts to a seller, are as good as PayPal gift is to a buyer, unless you know the person or have some reason to trust them.

Do us a favour, Google the email address the names and the full text of each email.

Pick person from railway station and show car. If they like they buy. Take person with cash too bank and deposit. Any issues with notes will come up. All is good hand over car.

Fir balance. I enquiried about a car and then asked if the seller minded if I took my mate who was a mechanic, he agreed. Then we decided we didn’t want to drive up 3 hours in one car then potentially do the same drive back in seperate cars and the seller agreed to pick us up at the station. The seller then called saying he felt uneasy meeting 2 guys at the station in the car, I felt uneasy buying a car not at the sellers house. We both laughed a bit and I met him at the station. We then went to his house and I bough the car. We all saw the funny side after.

This could be a scam of course but buying cars is a paranoid business on both sides. I’d be expecting the buyer to tax it off his phone?

So OP – did it happen, are you still here to tell the tale??!

OP is busy doing a kidney-count, I imagine

This could be really interesting!

Or a massive anticlimax…

Saw someone buying a Porsche Cayenne in Milngavie train station car park a few weeks ago. Initially thought it was a drug deal. The buyer handed over a monster pile of cash and drove off in the Porsche 😯

A long time ago I had to meet a bloke in a service station car park on a saturday morning to pick up some, err, drugs

We had a codeword and everything, though no cash changed hands

Was all a bit “the sparrows fly high above the Danube tonight, my friend” 🙄

I can confirm I am still alive, unbeaten and £1000 better off. Easiest car sale ever. 😀

😀

\o/

I can confirm I am still alive, unbeaten and £1000 better off. Easiest car sale ever.

Nice one.

It’s a wonder some of the panickers on here ever leave the house 😉

Glad the OP’s sale went well!!

When I bought my current car it was all a bit odd.

I spoke to an old-ish bloke on the phone who was the Dad of the bloke who was selling it.
I went to view it at a large house with big gravel driveway with several other cars on it. Turns out the bloke selling it was a small trader who sold cars from home – he had headed paper/invoices and all that. But, he ‘was on holiday’ and it was his mate who was looking after his business for a week or so. Gave me the key to the car and said “off you go, don’t go too far as there’s not loads of fuel in it and don’t crash it like the bloke last month did with the 3000GT”…..
I put down a £100 deposit on it and then when I got home checked the number plate on the AA and RAC website. One of them didn’t reckon the plate was genuine…..EEK….quick phone call and was told that the plates were being swapped back from personalised (which tied up with the Autotrader pics) and it would probably all check out in a day or two. It did.

Rang back to arrange collection and was told that the bloke was actually selling it on behalf of a mate’s father-in-law – here’s his number, give him a call. Hmmmm. Turns out the ‘mate’ used to work in a Seat dealer and had bought the car for his F-in-law while working there. He was helping his F-in-Law sell it and had used his mate’s trade account to advertise the car on Autotrader.

Went to pick the car up & the bloke had no record of the £100 deposit I had made. Luckily I took the receipt with me to prove it.
I then gave him a bankers draft for the balance – he had never seen a bankers draft and was clearly suspicious; it was for £7400. But he took it and it was all fine!

A weird transaction, but it worked out fine.

Funny old thing, selling second-hand cars!

When we moved overseas we sold our car on Autotrader. Agreed a price (£3,000) via email and on the phone with a guy from Bradford. We were in Harpenden (Hertfordshire).

I’d been very honest about the various scuffs and other stuff that might have been used to knock the price down. Mechanically it was sound. Anyway, the guy drove down from Bradford with two mates, I let him have a test drive, he had a nosey under the bonnet but I suspect it was more for show than anything else. Then he announced that he was happy with it, but he’d only brought £2,700 with him. I just said “Ah well, never mind. Have a safe trip back.”

He decided a quick whip-round was in order, and lo and behold his mates both happened to have £150 each about their persons.

I guess if you don’t ask, you don’t get, but buying second-hand cars seems to bring out the chancer in some people.

In a reverso-special edition of this I once had someone who was selling a car offer to pick me up from the station. In retrospect I think he was a tad dodgy.

WillH only the British dont barter. Everything has to be a known price and we’ll stand in a line waiting for it.

I still ask for best price in indie shops etc.

WillH only the British dont barter.

It’s not bartering, it’s haggling, totally different.

We are shit at it, but I’m ok with that. It used to make me cringe at the LBS the way some people approached it. “I’ve only bought £2700” would instantly give me the same reaction as WillH!

I Like to barter on cars – just to keep some cash back to fix any of the little niggling things that you may not notice..

No, you like to haggle. Bartering is exchanging goods for services or other goods, no money changes hands. Or do you mean you fix a bloke’s leaking toilet in exchange for a car?

Haggle/barter good point. I’ll barter insults with you if thats ok?

Or do you mean you fix a bloke’s leaking toilet in exchange for a car?

Maybe he fixes the bloke a something else as his means to barter