Hows this for a dishonest seller.
 

Phone call went something like this,your car that you have up for sale ,you mind answering some question I have.
Sure!
Does it run ?
I lost the key.
Will it pass inspection?
It did a yr ago.
Does the car have any rust?
very little
Hows the interior ,exterior look?
a few dings but nothing major ,interior I would say could be better when cleaned up ,havent driven it in a while.
I get their and the car is in a storage lot with grass growing along the doors,open it up and its fowl of water and mold ,check the bottom of the doors ,complete rust ,the trunk which I couldnt get access to but was easy enough to spot the cancer from underneath ,completely rusted through,
frt fenders needed replacing ,the new tie rods which he says are on the car were shot ones ,no title to see,ripped interior,wrecked frt bumper and light,drive shaft missing .Tags are 3 yrs old .
I wont even go near a non driver anymore with some past experiences but this one sounded to good to be true ,and it was.
Lie to me once I can see that someone may have just misspoken about the question but to pile a bunch of lies together ,to me your just a professional time waster with nothing really to sell, and thats what I said as I got in my car and dusted the dirt road.

what kind of car?

Roughly standard operating procedure for about half the characters who advertise old Mercedes in free ads around here.

"New" parts usually mean installed five years ago, with no receipts.

How much was he going to pay you to take it away?

But, but, there must be a pony there somewhere - look at all the horse***t! :D

That'll buff right out! :D

Don't mistake incompetence for being untruthful.

Miss remembering also plays a role here too. This kind of thing gets pretty bad when the original owner still remembers that tractor when it was new on the lot.

The world seems to be gaining more and more of these a-holes.

Ha ha! I liked the story. Here's mine:

Ring-ring

Hello?

Hello, I'm answering the ad in Craigslist. You have a 300SD for sale?

Yes I do.

May I ask a few questions about it?

Sure thing!

Has it ever been in an accident?

No, it's in great shape. No dents, no accidents. I just spent $300 having it detailed.

How many miles on it?

Oh, I think it's about 150K

How does it run?

It's really strong, and I love driving it. It's powerful and smooth.

How's the interior?

The interior is in great shape. I did put some sheepskin seat covers, because it gets so hot with the leather. The dash has a dash mat on it, it has a couple of cracks, but I think the dash mat looks good.

Does everything work on it?

Yes, everything works.

OK, I'll be by to see it.

When my buddy and I arrive, the car is already running, and looks like it was running for several minutes before we arrived, as it is fully-warmed up. I specifically said I wanted to cold-start it when I arrived. OK.

It has Bondo all over one side. Lots of Orange Peel, and sanding marks evident everywhere.

It's been hit, and is clearly a Frankenstein car. In fact, the steering wheel is crooked, because it looks like the entire front end was welded on from a donor car, and they didn't line it up properly!

The welds look pretty bad where they welded the front on. Paint is crazed and flaking, the door controls are all broken, and in fact the handle you pull to close the door is broken.

The engine looks like a transplant, and there is massive massive blow-by.

Many hoses look new, and there are OE parts missing everywhere. The primary fuel filter is gone, the cigar return hose is gone, there are those nasty US-style hose clamps everywhere. The dash is heavily cracked, instruments are broken, lights are broken, the seats are shot and springs are showing. There is heavy grease and dirt on the interior, all over the controls, on the headliner. THERE SEEMS TO BE DIRT *INSIDE* THE INSTRUMENT CLUSTER, indicating this thing was sitting outside without a windshield, or with the sunroof open!

The whole thing smells musty, looks dirty, and beat-up. Just for grins, we take it on the road, and it bucks and surges, and has obvious signs of all kinds of vacuum problems. Well, at least the windows go up and down!

My buddy and I laugh, and we get ready to leave, when the owner's kid (who is the one showing us the car) says "Well, do you want to buy the car?"

I patiently explained to him how the car was portrayed, and the multiple things wrong with it. He acts surprised and amazed and said that HE was the one who bought it for his Dad to drive, and he had no idea all those things were wrong.

Right. OK, and I was born yesterday.

Ha ha ha!

It was sad and funny all at the same time!

-PE

Been there done that a few times. Dishonesty is awful. Got a picture of the car? :D

There's two sides to that coin. I have a bunch of cars right now so I buy more then I sell. I have to say, you would not believe the number of idiots that I have to deal with on craigslist when selling car.

This is very true. I recently had my car up for sale. Despite having an 8-paragraph essay on the ad with every detail of the cars good and bad qualities, I still got dumb questions.

First guy has me call him and ask me about the interior, I essentially told him the same stuff I had detailed in the ad, in almost the same wording, and he said it sounded too "hacked up" and hung up. Dammit people. Just read.

My wife and I made a 3-hour drive to Chicago to see a 300SD, only to be told that "The engine turns over kind of hard, I think there is a hole in the pan and the oil leaked out..." so that ended the search as far as I was concerned.

To salvage something from the trip, we went to a nice family restaurant and had a great meal, and then sang songs on the way home.

I took a day of leave from work, used my frequent flier miles, and flew from DC to S.C. to pick-up and drive back a 280SLC.

No rust - none, the owner said. Seats redone with the same material and in the same patterns as original. Clean paint, etc. . . Most importantly, he tells me the car is safe to drive back to DC.

I get a cashier's check from the credit union and head off.

He meets me at the airport with the car. As we're walking to the parking lot he tells, Oh, by the way, the turn signals don't work - it just happened. And neither do the hazards. Strike 1.

We get to the car and the paint is clean. Indeed, it even covers over the dirty rubber window trim. Strike 2.

I check the typical C107 rust spots and sure enough, there's the rust. Open the trunk to a musty smell. The tank had been removed and put back in, but was not seated properly and there was no filler door area seal. Strike 3.

I look inside, the seats were in fact redone. In 1970's vintage RV style with a cheap plastic. It looked more like an amusement park bumper car seat. Strike 4.

I start walking back to the terminal. There was too much trust abused for me to chance a 500 mile drive home, so I was done. He says to me that I should at least hear the engine. Nope, I say and just keep walking. He offers to reduce the price. I don't even turn around.

I checked some public records later and found he used to live in the Mobile, Alabama. He had filed for bankruptcy and listed as one of his losses a 280SLC that was flooded with saltwater from hurricane Katrina.

I'm sure the blinkers were the first of many electronic components to die from corrosion. It is all probably crap by now. Rust bubbles under the paint and all.

I went with my gut and dodged a bullet.

^^^^
this is exactly why I don't buy anything off ebay anymore that I can't go and see first, no more "clean CA cars" ect for me. :D

I once bought a "no rust" 4-speed 240D off ebay, worked out a complex arrangement to come and get it since it was 1200 miles away, and after spending lots and time and travel money, I arrive at a rusted out car in west Virginia with no slave cylinder for the clutch, and a seller who had the key and wouldn't return my phone calls, after 2 hours earlier telling me it was ready to go and he had been driving it.

Fortunately for me, he has stupidly left the car at his job, and it was a weekday, so he was forced to deal with the situation since I went in there and found some helpful people.

Another time I bid and won on a diesel isuzu pup, drive 90 miles out to pick it up cash in hand, and being slightly more intelligent this time, find out it has a blown headgasket and won't start. "runs great, daily drive it" :rolleyes:

another time flew in, found out the engine was running on 3 cylinders ect, the list goes on and on.


What always gets me is that people blatantly lie, and then the buyer comes by and they are almost always exposed as a liar, yet people still do it.

Ive asked several people why they directly lied to me about the vehicles condition, and you usually get some kind of sheepish or evasive answer, why do it in the first place? I told one guy that i would still have been interested in the vehicle in its actual condition, but since he felt the need to lie to me an hour earlier on the phone, that id look for someone who didn't lie about stupid crap and buy their car instead.

Rust in my experience is the big lie. The huge majority of slightly dishonest sellers lies about that. Im more likely to be excited about visiting a car when the owner says, "heck yes its got rust, its 25 years old" :D