Selling a car on ebay – any pitfalls to be aware of?

First time selling a car privately and while I think I know what I want to do and how to do it, I just wondered if there was anything I was missing.

This isn’t a sneaky ad as the car is not STW compatible (i.e. it’s not an Audi, a T5 or a converted van-camper self build).

The car must be worth no more than a few hundred pounds given it’s mileage. I just want to get a fair price for it.
Having watched other auctions for the last few days, an auction with a starting fee of £0.99 seems to work quite well. I realise that I am risking the car going for a very low price, but am not overly bothered. Looking at other similar auctions, the price does normally ramp up to around the ‘correct’ value as it nears the end time.

So – an auction is going to cost me £10, plus a selling fee of 1% of the car value (min £20, max £35) so realistically, it’s gonne cost me a max of £30 to sell on ebay – £10 auction, £20 selling fee.

Regarding payment, I was going to put a line in the auction stating £100 Paypal payment non-refundable upon winning auction, with the balance to be paid on collection of the car in cash.
Does this sound sensible?

Anything I’ve missed? Anything to watch out for? I am fairly aware of the scams around ‘shipping the car’ or ‘my representative will collect the car’ etc. it’s more the standard ebay selling stuff I might have missed.

Thanks in advance.

I’ve advertised a few cars on eBay, 99p no reserve and treated it like a shop window.

People bid, people ask questions, then they ask for a BIN price and if it’s sensible – they’ll just buy it before the auction is over.

The last car I sold (in the past month) went up on Sunday night, and was off my driveway inside 24hrs. The one before that… Three days.

All paid cash, or BACS.

Anyway, meant I sold them for an eBay fee of £10

Cheers mOrk – sounds like it’s the way forward.
How do you cancel the auction early?

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/end_early.html

Just pick the reason that it’s no longer available and you’ll pay minimal fees

I’ve done it with 3 cars – one insurance write off, one in need of a bit of work and one that was fine. All cheap, a Ford Ka, a VW Polo and a Fiesta respectively, the Polo was a surprise, went for about £800 to a dealer in Wales who drove down and go it (from Sussex), he was chuffed. All have been very easy transactions.

Usual few tyre kickers and irritating questions – one guy told me I was dodgy because I wasn’t selling the car taxed (he didn’t grasp the new non-transferable rules).

Not sure I’d do it with anything over a few thousand, but you’re not, so go nuts!

You could use an eBay classified ad. Costs £15 if I remember correctly. It’s a fixed fee, so you know what it’ll cost you.

Be prepared for ridiculous offers though. You can tell ebay to reject offers below an amount of your choosing. I’ve sold cars and motorbikes this way.

Yeah, zanelad I considered a classified but don’t really have an idea of what price to pitch it at given the mileage.
I figure it will be easier for people to pay what they think it’s worth via auction.

Didn’t realise you can only upload 12 pics. I thought it was 12 free, but a load more if you paid a bit extra…..

I sold our last car 4 times before someone bothered to pay and turn up to collect. Had a hell of a fight each time with eBay on fees as they wanted paying for each time it sold.
I’d go with the classified ad and only cancel when the cash is in your hands with the relevant forms sorted.
Good luck.
Tim

For really cheap, I have used Gumtree.
For stuff that seems to have good demand (Corsa 1.2 and Mondeo estate) I have used eBay auctions and got more than expected.
For something a bit pricier, used Classified ad on ebay or specialist sites as the ad lasts a month and they weren’t cheap spur of the moment car purchases.

Above all, write a decent ad, it will sell the car quicker for a better return.

Went with an auction in the end – 99p starting bid and requested cash on collection.

Given as much information as I can, but probably loads I’ve forgotten!

List a minor fault and sell as spares or repair, you are then covered if it has a major breakdown while the new owner is driving it home.

hang on to details of any enquiries, you might want to go back to them and do a deal after you’ve been messed around by the auction winner (don’t know what the stats are, but everyone seems to have a story of being messed around on ebay, including me). There are a lot of r-soles out there.

I’ve sold motorbikes through eBay and it’s been fine, but everyone seems to have had stories of being messed around

Extensive description, 99p start, cash on collection (not on a Friday night), and a willingness to get rid of the lot asap – easy!

£10 on Autotrader for up to £1k. I’ve never been messed around on Autotrader as usually the first person bought the car.

Ebay’s a different matter. I’d never use them to sell a car again.
If someone wants to buy, let them come and see it, preferably with cash.

Cheers all. Good idea about keeping enquirers details, B.A.Nana.

surburbanreuben – my Wife tried Autotrader years ago to sell her Ka and we had non-stop scam enquiries and not one genuine enquiry. That put me off using it this time around.

Same as some of the above. I’ve sold a few cars via eBay and none of them have ever gone to the end of the auction. You always get viewers who come and want it there and then.

Last one was my Polo just after Christmas. It needed a load of work doing to it so advertised it for £600 no offers. Someone came the day after the auction went live, offered me £550 which I was expecting and I bit his arm off. Came to collect the following night – job done.

List a minor fault and sell as spares or repair, you are then covered if it has a major breakdown while the new owner is driving it home.

Surely caveat emptor applies to any second hand sale, ebay or not (unless your a dealer).

Hmmm, I’ve done it a few times – eBay is great for reaching the maximum number of buyers – but of course you have to consider that x% of buyers are arseholes, so you’re also opening yourself up to the maximum number of arseholes.

I personally don’t like ending auctions early, it can mean a bit more grief – for example a car I was selling a few years ago, buyer asks a few pertinent questions, agrees a price to ‘end early’ fine, but I have to end the auction then and there because it was getting close to the last 24 hours when you can’t end it. Guy turns up and he’s an arsehole – starts kicking tyres, pointing out this and that blemish that separates this £900 car from the state it arrived from the factory a mere 14 years earlier and wants to pay less, a lot less, take it or leave it, and murmurs about negative feedback (which he can’t leave) even goes as far as pulling out the cash and sticking his hand out like Mike Brewer – so I sent him on his way, on foot.

Anyway, I personally list things in a factual way, avoid BS terms like “drives nicely” or “good condition for age” that someone with a bit of buyer’s remorse or a partial refund scammer can claim means “as new” to eBay. list the mileage, the MOT status and any obvious faults and sell strictly “cash on collection” – it might seems a bit harsh and draconian but the rules around second-hand cars and private sellers are quite straight-forward – it’s ‘sold as seen’ if the engine explodes on the way home, it’s the buyers fault – some people seem to think that Joe Bloggs down the road selling his old hatchback has to provide the same sort of service and warranty as Bentley – as a private individual if you’re not selling something in the ‘normal course of you business’ you’re not liable for it as long as you’ve sold it honestly.

I had a guy come back to me 8 months after buying a Honda Bike from me complaining about some fault or other it had developed, which I “must have known about” somehow before he took it around Europe for 6 months. He’d forget about the whole thing if I bought it back from him! At least PP told him to do one.

Cheers for all the tips and advice.

Well, it’s up and running. Last time I looked, it had already reached £50 after <24hrs.

I’ve had one bloke ask a couple of Q’s about the car and wanting to know if there was a ‘buy it now’ price, but bidding had already started so I told him i’d rather let it run it’s course…

I did it years ago. Ended up going for £600. Put it on low. Had a few chancers offering me £150 to end early. One guy wanted a test drive, I said no but I would take him for a drive (I was concerned about insurance complications). He was happy with that (and bought it). Paid cash on collection. I was of the opinion that it was not really worth anything so any money was a bonus. I was pretty chuffed to get £600.

Allow for people to want to have a look at it. When I’ve met people to sell bike bits etc. I don’t like doing it at my house so do it in a car park just down the road. I can walk there it is busy with shoppers and well lit.

One good thing about selling cars is that you can set a reserve without the fee % ramping up as much as it does on say an MTB – the fees for selling a £1000 car can end up a lot less than selling a £1000 MTB.

I’ve had one bloke ask a couple of Q’s about the car and wanting to know if there was a ‘buy it now’ price, but bidding had already started so I told him i’d rather let it run it’s course…

Could be counter productive to getting bidders. Why not pick a value you’d be happy with as a BIN and send it out there.

You do want to sell the car don’t you?

Just watch out for non-paying bidders, or people who assume the final sale price is a starting point for negotiation when they turn up to see the car they bought blind without looking at it first. I had a few problems with this, just told them if they weren’t happy i’d cancel the sale and relist.

dooosuk – Member

Could be counter productive to getting bidders. Why not pick a value you’d be happy with as a BIN and send it out there.

You do want to sell the car don’t you?

I see your point, but so long as I cover the cost of the eBay fees I am not too concerned. It’s up to £80 and hasn’t been on a day yet, so I reckon I’ll get a decent price for it.

Ribena – yeah, that’s my main concern…people bidding and then expecting the winning bid to be the start of negotiations. I’m not in a hurry to get rid, so if I have to relist it due to time wasters I will do.

Make sure you cancel your insurance as soon as its sold.

Regarding payment, I was going to put a line in the auction stating £100 Paypal payment non-refundable upon winning auction, with the balance to be paid on collection of the car in cash.

Pay deposit on eBay, collect car and pay balance, file a dispute with eBay “goods not delivered,” receive £100 back?

Not if you send an invoice for goods/services and put it in writing in the ‘note to buyer’ bit. Their paying the invoice is their acceptance of the deposit terms.

edit- I make sure that all communication is done via ebay messages (if I’m selling on ebay) so that any and all messages can be used as evidence in case I need to. Ebay is good useful but it doesn’t half attract some idiots.

Pay deposit on eBay, collect car and pay balance, file a dispute with eBay “goods not delivered,” receive £100 back?

Fill out form for small claims court.

Send to new owner, and police along with a copy of the signed V5 and report it as fraud.

Sit back and cackle manically.

Sure, if I were a scammer I’d be absolutely sure to give the seller my actual name and address.

Yeah but would anyone actually try that scam for the sake of 100 quid off something that they’ve already paid (presumably) a good bit more for?

When I bought a big CoC item it was just turn up with cash though, no PP deposit (and no ebay fees for them, I assume).

Gah! You’re giving me the willies now….

So how do I prove that the winning bidder turned up, paid cash and took the car…?
Do people write receipts for private car sales?
Could get my Wife to take a photo of us shaking on the deal… 😀

Do people write receipts for private car sales?

I did. I sold a car on eBay 2 months ago, much as you’re doing, and wrote a 2 way receipt, me acknowledging I’d received the money and the buyer acknowledging receipt of the car, we both signed it and I gave him a copy. Also included all the useful stuff such (both ways) he was responsible for insuring it from the point of sale on, sold without warranty, items noted such as wheel lock key, V5C completed by me and green slip given to him, me confirming it was mine to sell, etc.

The only problem I had was that the winning bidder decided (without seeing the car) that she didn’t want it any more, but said I could sell it to the next highest, which was only £10 less, so she said it was no big deal that she’d reneged. But she didn’t withdraw her bid, and she expected me to cancel the sale, which meant I’d get a black mark and have to pay eBay the selling fees, and I couldn’t sell to anyone else until the sale was cancelled. So I reported her for non-payment, and she didn’t respond to eBay (just whined at me for reporting her!) so after 4 days I was able to cancel without losing my fees. Relisted it, annoyed because I was paying out for insurance, the car was depreciating (for cheap cars, value is proportional to time left on MoT) and I had to retax it – but the winner on the relist bid £120 more, and came round with the cash within 24hrs, so all fine.

copy of the signed V5 and report it as fraud.
Sit back and cackle manically.

A £100 fraud that’s something to do with eBay and used cars is very unlikely to get any police attention unless you live somewhere in the sticks and have a mega enthusiastic officer. We can’t even get them interested when thousands or hundreds of thousands of pounds have been taken and we have done all the investigations necessary. The police are massively under resourced and under prioritising fraud.

Hmmm, maybe.

But you now have it in writing via ebay that they’ve not recieved the car. And assuming the address on the v5 is correct (how else would they get the new one posted to them) you can pop round and pick up the car thats still yours 🙂

so if I have to relist it due to time wasters I will do.

Thing is, it costs you every time someone messes you around, ebay only refund part of the listing price.

I had a few enquiries, two people came and looked it over, then I got a message telling me to end the auction early and they would pay x and collect it on such and such a day (a few days after my auction ended). I politely replied thanks but no thanks, even pointing out to them that they might get it for less if they saw the auction thru to the end. So they kiboshed my auction by using a second ‘dummy’ account to massively over bid against themselves. I knew it was this person who did it because this happened immediately after I replied turning down their offer/instructions. Sold it off ebay to one of the enquirers, for the price I expected.

But you now have it in writing via ebay that they’ve not recieved the car. And assuming the address on the v5 is correct (how else would they get the new one posted to them) you can pop round and pick up the car thats still yours

What – the car for which you don’t have a V5 or keys, you mean?

I don’t know how you see that as a happy ending

Gah! It was all going so well. Plenty of different bids, price going steadily up, bidders all with high feedback and then BAM….overnight someone with 1 feedback rating comes in with a high bid, which has got my suspicious mind whirring away….

They joined late last year and have bought one item around Christmas time – that’s it. No more activity. It says they are UK based, but nothing more. Should I be suspicious of this?

I have sent them a message asking them to reassure me that they are an actual bidder, as I have been stung with low feedback bidders in the past and if I don’t hear back in 6hrs or so I will be asking ebay to cancel their bid.
Feel a bit guilty about this and wonder if I am being overly suspicious and rash doing this, but just got a bad feeling about it.

Every time I sell stuff on ebay I sat it’s gonna be my last time….always ends up with stressy issues….

Well, cheers for all the tips/advice.

It sold & the buyer picked it up earlier. Paid cash on collection.
Already cancelled the insurance & will be posting the V5 off this afternoon.

Managed to get £399 for it, which I was pleased with….same model but with average mileage (120-150k) seem to go for about £800.
just a bit gutted to part with my car that I’ve owned for almost 10 years and put 247k miles on….!

A friend has sold two cars on Ebay – both times the buyers were car dealers looking for a cheap resale thing for their forecourt.

Both times they turned up with less cash than what they’d won the auction for.

Both times my friend said “Ah okay, I’ll take you back to the train station” – he didn’t act surprised or kick a fuss or whatever.

Both times the guy said okay take him to a cash point and he’ll get the rest.

E: ooop just seen you sold it, good work.