If i had a dollar evertime i had someone tell me " i will take it " or "consider it sold " ,and then never heard back from them ,i wouldnt need to sell anything ever again.I dont hold cars for anyone anymore or accept a down payment either ( i dont finance ).I would not turn down cash in front of me for someones word now days.I have been screwed over too many times by dreamers.I dont really blame the guy for selling it.Long ago it may have been you could take strangers at their word on a whole ,but not nowdays.If i want to go look at a car to buy , i always stop at the bank on the way and draw the cash to take with me.If i dont have the cash with me i dont bother looking.I dont ask people to hold cars for me either.I assume they are selling it to the first guy with the money in hand...
No trailer is no excuse. I don't have a trailer but I usually can borrow one. If not- I call a flatbed tow. Done deal.
Any time you buy or sell a car, it's a business transaction, not a friendly deal between a couple of new friends. Verbal agreements and handshakes mean not a damn thing. If I want to buy your car and want to take it now, I promise to come back tomorrow to pay you, do you let me take it now? No way. Cash talks, BS walks. Ever had a "be back" not show up, meanwhile you turn down a guy with cash while you wait for Mr. BBack. Guess what, he nevers shows up. There is a great difference between BSing, saying what a guy is gonna do, and what he actually does. Next time, bring cash, leave a deposit. Go get the cash and go get the car. Oh, yeah, as a seller, take a deposit but specify a time limit. Nothing worse that getting a deposit from a BBack tomorrow guy and then waiting three weeks for him to show. If at all. Get/give a deposit, good for one week, after that, it's my cash. And car is sold to next guy. Welcome to the world of reality....business.
I'll put it to ya simply... "I only want to see the seller once." OR... "I only want to see the buyer once." That's my mindset. Now think about that, and think about how you can make that happen. lol...
Had it happen to me on a '40 Chevy years ago. Agreed to pay the asking price and offered to give him a deposit. He said no need, we had a deal. I come back the next day with cash and he says he got a better offer but since I was there first it was mine if I met the offer. I told him where he could put his car. The other guy didn't come through and he called me back and said it was mine for the original deal. I told him to stick it up his ass.
I sold an OT car to a foreign guy once. He had just come to the U.S. I held the car for three or four months with no deposit so he could get the money together and take his driving test. He did come back and buy it. I also promised a '65 Mercury Comet to a guy for $600.00. I told him he had my word. Afterwords I got calls from people that cussed me out and told me how stupid I was for not selling it to them for twice that. Recently, I had to back out of a deal where I gave the guy a $100.00 deposit - he still has my deposit and I really don't plan on reclaiming it. Sometimes it's hard to keep your word when money is involved, but I try.
"Cash talks bullshit walks" I'm with everyone who has also experienced the Bbacks. I recently bought a car from a guy who was tired of all the tire kickers and Bbacks. When I told him I was coming through his area with trailer and cash and would leave with it that night as long as it was as advertised he was ready to deal. We were loading it at 10:30 p.m. He had a guy who supposedly was coming the next day but he was tired of all the hassle of Bbacks.
if your serious about a car youll have cash in hand what if the seller held it for you and your word wasnt good not saying it wouldnt be but he just covered his bases and beat you to the punch hell ive sold cars that people left deposits on because they didnt show up at the time they said with the rest of the money they got there $$$ back but lost the car i used to flip alot of cars on the street when i was in sd (10-30 a month) and 95% of the people who didnt have cash in hand never came back and just wasted my time
Question when he accepted your offer did you pay him. My opinion is until you have paid in full or put down a deposit there was not a deal. For all a seller knows they might not ever see you again. When i price something it is only good at that moment. You dont know how many times i have heard ill be back and never saw the folks again. OldWolf
Anymore I won't even take a down payment to hold the car. When the guy changes his mind he can walk away from a small deposite,and cause no end of bullshit to get a big one returned. When ALL of the cash is in my hand the deal's done... Cheque......sure,but the car don't leave here till the cheque is cleared at my bank and the cash is in my hand
Cash talks, period, whether it is parts or cars. Hell, I have had a Chevy truck axle assembly, advertised on several forums for the cost of FREE, COME AND GET IT!, and I still get "Can you hold that for me?"...the answer from me is "If you are on your way right this very second, yes...if not, it's available to the first person that shows up!" IF I go to look at something and don't have all of the cash that second, I definitely bring enough for a decent deposit, have the seller sign an affadavit stating the purchase price and the fact they have "X" dollars as a deposit (and witnessed by whomever is with ME at that time!), then I go and get the rest of the cash immediately. I'll even take a picture of the person holding the deposit AND the bill of sale, just for more evidence! Seal the deal, load up, move on. If someone says they'll "be back", I usually say "Whatever!" and walk away. I don't expect them back, so I don't concern myself about it.
A few years ago I sold my 51 Merc that I had had for 32 years and didn't want to sell but my mother (who owns the property it was sitting on) was giving me hell because people were bothering her renters over it and she was threatening to have it towed. It still wasn't for sale but a gent stopped by and gave the renter a written note with a cash offer. I called him back and said cash green money, no deposits and no be backs. He was there the next afternoon handing my wife a fist full of 100 dollar bills in my moms driveway. One of my buddies used to tell the story about running across a Harley at the deal of a lifetime price on a weekend before cash machines and payday loan outfits. He left his wife with the guy and his lady while he ran to town and rounded up the cash to get the bike. There are three payday loan outfits and a dozen cash machines within ten minutes of my house so for what I have had for sale lately isn't a big deal for someone to run to town and get the cash and be back in short order. And that damned kid who told me last Sunday that he just had to have that o/t parts car I have hasn't shown up or called again yet either.
Rookie mistake on your part. Get a feel for the seller. Do with it what he was planning to do with it. Be cool, be respectful. Let him be happy with the sale. If he really cared about the car (and that goes for all the other busy-bees purist's on this forum that claim they wouldn't sell it to you), he'd call you daily to check on your progress. Guess what, nobody is calling the buyer of their last car to make sure they are treating it "correctly". Same goes for those numb-nutz sellers that say stupid things like, "I'd rather crush it than take "X" amount of dollars for it".... Hmm, not me. "Honey, some anonymous internet person offered us 1/2 of what we were asking for the car... quick, go crush it to show him we mean business, and we're not fooling around..." It also shows the car has no monetary value to you. Ask that same guy to randomly pull $100 bills out of his wallet and set them on fire during a car deal to prove to you that it's not about the money and truly about the principle of it. MAN, that's an ignorant statement... It's your car. Do with it as you like.
All this "money talks""money talks""money talks""money talks".. I guess the days of a handshake deal and the word of a good man are officially over.. Makes me kinda sad..
This just happened to me a few weeks ago i sent the guy a nasty text, I know it was wrong but it is what it is...
An example of why it's hard to take the word of someone you don't know. I was traveling and had some bodies on my trailer. Ran into a guy who as soon as he saw one particular body wanted to buy it and we made a deal. He had a lot of things for sale and I spent about 2 hrs with him showing me what all he had to sell. He didn't have anything I wanted but he started talking about buying all I had and trying to make a deal on it all. Finally he said he'd buy just the one. After a bit more talking I told him we needed to get it unloaded at which time he said he'd better not buy it. So in the space of a little over 2 hrs what had been a deal was down the tubes. So why would I wait days for someone I don't know who hasn't left any money? If the deal is here it's different as a guy needs time to send the money. But even here I've had guys who've backed out of a deal.
It's a f#cked up world we live in and I can see both sides of the story. I've had a few people tell me they wanted to buy a vehicle from me and then never hear from them or they changed thier mind. If someone comes to me and tells me they want it and will be back tomorrow or in 3 days or whatever, they better give me a deposit or the next guy may be getting it. If someone is truely intersested they will have no problem leaving a deposit and I let the prospective buyer know what's going on, you want it, leave me a non-refundable deposit. Just my 2 cents
No, it's pretty simple for the seller to tell the potential buyer that it's first come first serve. Or put a limit on the time he will hold the car for the buyer. This is stuff that anyone that has done much buying and selling will realize to start with. It needs to be worked out and understood BEFORE you shake hands or agree to a deal. Larry T PS Seems like the drama posts stay at the top the longest.
Simple formula for this problem, and it has yet to fail me... Trailer + ca$h = DONE DEAL. I show up with $$ and a trailer when I'm serious about buying a set of wheels. Somebody calls and calls, and promises they are coming right over, I tell them I'll believe it when I see the $$ in my hand. I have had some guy claim he was flying in the next day to buy my bike, only to bail at the last minute... after I waived off another potential buyer. I will never make that mistake again. Yes, it is sad that your word is no longer your bond, but there are just too many folks out there with good intentions and empty pockets.
I 'FOUND' A 60's TRIUMPH BIKE IN INDY, ON TUESDAY, CALLED MADE THE DEAL... ONE CONDITION.......I 'WILL' BE THERE SATURDAY MORNING! [300 miles- one way/ no available time off work.] WHERE DO YOU 'WANT' ME TO SEND THE DEPOSIT? SELLER SEZ............" NO DEPOSIT NECESSARY, IF YOU WANT IT IT IS YOURS.......I'M A MAN OF MY WORD!" SELLER CALLED ON WEDNESDAY...., A 'DEALER'.....IN PA 'OFFERED' ME $500 MORE. ...."WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO.......sob/whimper $500 IS A LOT OF MONEY sob/whimper.....I CAN'T TURN DOWN $500 MORE"? MY RESPONSE..............."YOU DO WHAT YOUR CONSCIENCE TELLS YOU! BUT REMEMBER EVERY WHORE HAS A PRICE, YOUR'S SEEMS TO BE $500" AND I HUNG UP! SELLER DID NOT CALL BACK---------no surprise there! LESSON LEARNED! i have always wondered what kind of 'drama' would have played out if i'd have driven 300 miles to be told the $500-more-story! red ryder
Yep, cash is king. I don't EVER hold anything for anyone unless they put the cash in my hand...or at least some of it. Not even my friends. Been burnt out of a sale too many times. If you go look at a car and don't give the guy $200 down or at least something, your a dumb ass. If I had $1 for every time someone said they would take the car and never showed back up, I would have about about ten grand in the bank right now.
We've all got a story about holding something for someone, or being beat to the punch trying to buy something. Bottom line, we don't know if any money changed hands (doesn't sound like it did), no bill of sale, just an "I'll be back". In the car business, "be backs" don't come back. Shake the sellers hand. Leave a (substantial) deposit. Get a bill of sale with the deposit, balance due, and an indication of when the deal gets done. That's an agreement and a contract. Stop whining.
All I was saying is that it makes me sad that we can't rely on "traditional" values anymore.. No drama going on here
it's interesting what some people think is getting screwed over...even if the deal was made over the phone, tough...someone got to the guy with cash money first, well to the victor go the spoils, that's just how it works. A deposit and receipt is good, but you could still get the thing sold out from under you, gotta do the deal and have it gone ASAP and not fool around, if you really want it. When I'm making a deal for something and they tell me they're waiting to hear from someone or holding it for someone, I tell them I have cash and I'll come over right now and get it and pay what they're asking. After a few times of holding an item for some jerky that doesn't ever come back to get it or tries to lowball you when he does, you realize that money doesn't talk, it screams.
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