Shi#&y 💩 dealings.
 

Theoretical questions.

If you find or are turned on to a Craigslist ad for a car,(or anything really) talk to the owner and agree on a price, then send a deposit. Now arrangements are made with people to go and pickup the car, only to find out the seller has decided to take a higher offer, what do you think?

1. Who's the bigger douche bag, the seller for accepting or the buyer for raising repeatedly after being told that a deposit and deal has been made? if it's people that know each other that even worse right?

2. Should the seller be held to pay for your (and others involved)wasted time on top of your returned deposit?

3. Should the shady buyer be slandered and get a warning label put on his name?

In most countries - unless specified at the time of the arrangement - a deal is a deal be it in an email or in word etc etc etc. In effect the seller has entered a contract to sell for the agreed price.

The practice of going for a better offer in the English housing market is called gazumping - in principle it is illegal in the UK but it is rather tricky to fix.

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Assigning a value to your "wasted time" is going to involve a whole load of trouble

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Unless you're either a baby boomer with lots of money and time on his hands to drag people through some sort of legal process I suggest you move on.

If you're a gangster then its concrete welly time isn't it...

I pretty much agree with Stretch - there's little you can do, you should probably be glad the seller doesn't try and scam you out of your deposit.

That being said, the ethical thing to do is to honor the terms of sale with the original buyer.

I've had this happen as a seller, where I accepted a deposit from someone and another party approached me and offered more. In those situations I've told the higher offer party that they're next in line should the original buyer bail. That's the best I could do.

I can understand the desire to get more out of the sale, but a deal's a deal in my book.

I hate dealing on Craigslist. Both as a buyer and seller.

Dan

I agree that the seller is in the wrong. Having said that, I wouldn't send a deposit on a car without a written purchase agreement signed by seller and buyer. That can be done by email, fax, etc and should specify the amount of time the buyer has to pay for the car in full and the amount of time the buyer has to collect the car after payment. If the buyer doesn't pay the rest of the amount on time then the seller is free to sell the car to someone else, possibly even keeping the buyer's deposit.

I had this happen to me after sending a 500 dollar deposit on a 220SE Ponton Cab. We sent the money by post because it was going to take a week or more to sort out shipping knowing the money would be there before the tow truck.
The same day, several hours later, he called me to say that he sold the car to someone else for 1,500 more. I said that I already sent a down payment, bought the car, and that we had a deal. He was almost whimpering on the phone saying he didn't know what to do and how confused he was about everything.
So, the next day I drove 4 hours to the guy's place and paid him in person for the higher amount because it was still a good price but higher than we first agreed to. Later on, I talked to the guy who was also looking at the car who backed off when he learned it was was me who was buying the car. I knew this guy a little bit and there was no reason not to believe him when he told me that this guy bragged to him about doing the same thing to others before me.

Yup, just another douche bag. Anyone who's done this once, has done this once before.

Shi#&y 💩 dealings.
 

$500 agreed non-running US 6.9 for me (less than 48 hours ago). I offered to send full payment. They guy said he just wanted a $100 deposit and I had a week to come get it. He sounded trustworthy, but he did say his phone was blowing up bc apparently someone posted it on Chicagoland Mercedes Enthusiast Facebook group 10 minutes after it was posted on CL. Later that night when I was asleep he sent me a text saying some Filip from FL offered $700. I thought that a “friend” of mine had a shop guy named Filip in FL and asked my friend before 8 am if it was his guy. He didn’t directly say “no”, but sure made it sound like it wasn’t his guy. Later that day I talked to the seller. $800. Said he’d give it to the first person to pay $1000. He said he got the offer from Filip for $1000. I asked for a few minutes to discuss with some friends to see if they’d want it for $1000, because I got to thinking I didn’t, and the whole thing felt slimy. Before I got back to him, I saw he refunded my $100 deposit, and that was that (about 24 hours ago). I confirmed that it was in fact the associate of my “friend”. My friend claims that he did ask Filip, and his associate lied to him saying it wasn’t him. The seller and my friend corroborated the phone number of the Filip that would not respond. A mutual friend claims to have been boned by this Filip in FL too. So was I boned by?
(a) the seller
(b) Filip
(c) my “friend”?

Possibly all 3, but even if my friend was really in the dark about it all, it still hurt. A $1000 deal would not have been bad, but was it even going to stop at $1000? I guess really the seller is the person that made an agreement with me. The only solution would have been to not gone to bed and gotten in the truck to go do the deal in person as soon as it was agreed, that night.

Anybody want to reach out to the guy and offer $1500? I bet he’d break the deal with Filip?

84cba468ee5e36439e2af5c53567b668@reply.craigslist.org

Filip won’t respond to my texts, so I don’t really care what he thinks. ;-)

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Best that deals are done in person. Not always possible . Unfortunately many have been burned by scoundrels that are looking for money and nothing else. I have never had an issue with a real car guy/gal. I vet them in that way. Perhaps I have been lucky but when I connect with them the deals go well

Since I live in the middle of nowhere Nebraska I am hours away from everything. So I tend to watch for items that have been up for sale for at least two weeks. Then I show up, cash and trailer in hand, and make an offer.

And I always have a plan B. I got burned years ago on a car four hours away that was a done deal that fell apart when someone showed up and offered, cash in hand, far less than I had agreed to. So you never can tell what a seller is going to do.

Plan B usually involves visiting a salvage yard in the area that claims to have an old Mercedes or two. Or perhaps a yard that is on the way there or back. But sometimes I still make a long trip for nothing.

It's a good thing for me this is a hobby. Dealing with people like that would drive me nuts if I had to do it for a living.

From what I observe In the car world. A buyer can never be too careful. One pathetic incident many years ago on misrepresentation taught me just how bad it can be. Was a total waste of time and effort on my part..

I examined the listings on BAT only a week or so ago. . A lot of dealers and flippers where there. It seemed to me far more than when they first started. In general I do not think things are getting any better.

It seems like less than a year ago the only thing that would show up on BAT would be weird things trying to reach a limited market. Strange four wheel drive forest service trucks with crew cabs and things like that.

It seems to be going more mainstream.

Off topic but BAT started as "get this pile out of my yard. " type cars.