Does nobody sell cars privately now?
Discussion
Griffith4ever said:
nickfrog said:
Mr Whippy said:
But yeah. Selling say a £30k car, money in bank, next day you find out it’s been scammed via a transfer or something…?!
Car gone, buyer gone, money gone. Oh dear.
Good point. Scary. Not sure what mitigation exist against that risk but I probably never considered it, naively.Car gone, buyer gone, money gone. Oh dear.
It's the same xfer you make when buying a car from a dealer. How do you think they manage? One example : bought a car from an independent high end car dealer 3 years ago. Drove to dealer, looked at car, accepted deal - xferred £45k, as soon as it showed in his bank - I drove off in a V10 R8. What's the difference? none.
Every big sale I've made I moved the money to another account immediately, just to prove to myself it has indeed cleared.
brisel said:
Bought & sold my last 4 cars via PH Classifieds, though the most recent was from an Autotrader search, not PH.
As above, many local friends use WBAC and Cazoo now.
Sold my son's £900 mk4 astra via autotrader. In 4 days. To someone who needed a car to get to work.As above, many local friends use WBAC and Cazoo now.
That AT advert was free.
PH adverts are too expensive for Sheds, (anyone remember when it was free to advertise? )
gumtree resulted in one response.
Facebook, lots of mouthbreathing t
ts, who didn't turn up or offered £300. When you looked at thier profiles, and that of thier partners, you knew that they were proper council. With dogs. www.autos
te.com got some nice words of encouragement, but it needed to be £700 to entice anyone. Buying? I start off with autos
te, and then move to autotrader. Haha, Facebook - you literally have to ignore ANYONE who messages "is it still available?" - If they can't be arsed to even say "hello" but just click a button instead they are NOT interested in paying anywhere near your asking price, let alone even buying it. Intelligent genuine people say things like "hey, I know it stupid to ask, but I assume it's still for sale? I'd like to have a look if possible?, here's my email and phone number"... etc that kind of contact.
You end up ignoring 90% of all "enquiries".
Occasionally for sport, I do the "is it still available" thing to people who are searching for something to buy but put up a fake selling advert with a low price to get your attention. Pisses me off :-)
You end up ignoring 90% of all "enquiries".
Occasionally for sport, I do the "is it still available" thing to people who are searching for something to buy but put up a fake selling advert with a low price to get your attention. Pisses me off :-)
colin86 said:
Been looking for new car nothing special and there doesn’t seem to be many private sales at all . Have people stopped selling privately? My thinking was they would be better looked after because some of the stuff I have saw in the garages are terrible condition.
I've got one for sale at the moment on Autotrader. But it is an older Toyota and not going for very much money (sitting at the bottom third of that model's current price distribution).Also haven't heard a peep from anyone at the moment...
I've bought and sold most of my cars privately.
When selling, I write an informative ad, price the car between trade and retail values, and generally have it gone within a week or two.
Currently on the lookout for a sports or GT car. Very few private sellers, I guess for reasons mentioned in this thread, and most are asking dealer retail money.
When selling, I write an informative ad, price the car between trade and retail values, and generally have it gone within a week or two.
Currently on the lookout for a sports or GT car. Very few private sellers, I guess for reasons mentioned in this thread, and most are asking dealer retail money.
Sold a car privately last weekend to the third person that came to see it, but it was at the cheaper end of the market, in this case a £3k Audi A4 3.0. I was surprised how picky people were given it was 20 years old though - a number of folk wanted it to be totally fault free which seems unreasonable given the age. I manage to stop them wasting their time and mine by sending them a short video of the car highlighting the small faults it had.
Prior to that in the last 2.5 years I've sold an R56 Mini (2010), Fiat Bravo (2010) and VW Golf (2006) all without any timewasters and all to either the 1st or 2nd people to actually come and see them. So that was all generally positive but then they were all just cheap and fairly ordinary cars.
Contrast that to when I helped my FIL sell his Volvo XC70 to WBAC and they knocked an eye watering £1300 off for a minor scratch on the wing, some stone chips on the bonnet and some paint missing from some careless door opening. They then threw the folder of paperwork in the bin citing GDPR which contained all the receipts for all the work he'd had done in the 7 years he'd owned it, which seemed utter madness. At that point I vowed never to go near WBAC again.
Personally I would far rather buy privately in the sub £10k space. It's almost always cheaper, you get to actually speak to the owner about their experience and you don't get told the lies and broken promises. So it's frustrating as somebody looking that there aren't more private sellers out there.
Prior to that in the last 2.5 years I've sold an R56 Mini (2010), Fiat Bravo (2010) and VW Golf (2006) all without any timewasters and all to either the 1st or 2nd people to actually come and see them. So that was all generally positive but then they were all just cheap and fairly ordinary cars.
Contrast that to when I helped my FIL sell his Volvo XC70 to WBAC and they knocked an eye watering £1300 off for a minor scratch on the wing, some stone chips on the bonnet and some paint missing from some careless door opening. They then threw the folder of paperwork in the bin citing GDPR which contained all the receipts for all the work he'd had done in the 7 years he'd owned it, which seemed utter madness. At that point I vowed never to go near WBAC again.
Personally I would far rather buy privately in the sub £10k space. It's almost always cheaper, you get to actually speak to the owner about their experience and you don't get told the lies and broken promises. So it's frustrating as somebody looking that there aren't more private sellers out there.
nickfrog said:
Griffith4ever said:
nickfrog said:
Mr Whippy said:
But yeah. Selling say a £30k car, money in bank, next day you find out it’s been scammed via a transfer or something…?!
Car gone, buyer gone, money gone. Oh dear.
Good point. Scary. Not sure what mitigation exist against that risk but I probably never considered it, naively.Car gone, buyer gone, money gone. Oh dear.
It's the same xfer you make when buying a car from a dealer. How do you think they manage? One example : bought a car from an independent high end car dealer 3 years ago. Drove to dealer, looked at car, accepted deal - xferred £45k, as soon as it showed in his bank - I drove off in a V10 R8. What's the difference? none.
Every big sale I've made I moved the money to another account immediately, just to prove to myself it has indeed cleared.
I think this is the issue. Consumers are always behind the scammers.
You go into transactions weary of being scammed.
Mr Whippy said:
Sorry I’d read about transfers being done using stolen details being reversed.
I think this is the issue. Consumers are always behind the scammers.
You go into transactions weary of being scammed.
I spoke to HSBC Premier since then and they confirmed 100% safe thankfully. It can't be reversed according to them.I think this is the issue. Consumers are always behind the scammers.
You go into transactions weary of being scammed.
James76G said:
Personally I would far rather buy privately in the sub £10k space. It's almost always cheaper, you get to actually speak to the owner about their experience and you don't get told the lies and broken promises. So it's frustrating as somebody looking that there aren't more private sellers out there.
Me too. 
I'd much rather meet the previous keeper and get any service documents than buy from a trader who knows nothing of the cars history.
I just 'sold' a Merc privately for £68.5k, except the buyer dicked around for about 2 weeks sorting finance. I binned him off and sold it the motorway way for £68.9k in one day.
I was tempted to keep the messer's deposit, but didn't in the end as I'd done alright anyway.
Moral of the story, if the buyer needs finance it's probably easier to sell into the trade who have a proper budget in place
I was tempted to keep the messer's deposit, but didn't in the end as I'd done alright anyway.
Moral of the story, if the buyer needs finance it's probably easier to sell into the trade who have a proper budget in place
stinkyspanner said:
I just 'sold' a Merc privately for £68.5k, except the buyer dicked around for about 2 weeks sorting finance. I binned him off and sold it the motorway way for £68.9k in one day.
I was tempted to keep the messer's deposit, but didn't in the end as I'd done alright anyway.
Moral of the story, if the buyer needs finance it's probably easier to sell into the trade who have a proper budget in place
Also worth mentioning most banks won't let you transfer above £25k in one day. You have to go into a branch or call the high value payments department, and both those are limited to weekdays and working hours (admittedly that won't take a week, but worth mentioning).I was tempted to keep the messer's deposit, but didn't in the end as I'd done alright anyway.
Moral of the story, if the buyer needs finance it's probably easier to sell into the trade who have a proper budget in place
Mr Whippy said:
Sorry I’d read about transfers being done using stolen details being reversed.
I think this is the issue. Consumers are always behind the scammers.
You go into transactions weary of being scammed.
Oh The way you wrote that I thought you were talking from life experience...I think this is the issue. Consumers are always behind the scammers.
You go into transactions weary of being scammed.
Mr Tidy said:
James76G said:
Personally I would far rather buy privately in the sub £10k space. It's almost always cheaper, you get to actually speak to the owner about their experience and you don't get told the lies and broken promises. So it's frustrating as somebody looking that there aren't more private sellers out there.
Me too. I'd much rather meet the previous keeper and get any service documents than buy from a trader who knows nothing of the cars history.
When I said. Get a black marker pen and redact the details that matter they refused.
So my 30k full service history, one stamp.per year, for 9 years by the same main dealer means very little.
Unlike the car my father in law gave my son,which included a book with 5 tyre pressures weekly checked and written down.
Somewhere is a happy medium.
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