I sold a car on ebay to a fellow from England

[tatertop]

What form of payment is best

[brainshrub]

1. Don't accept tea as payment.

There is still a bunch of it available at the bottom of Boston Harbor. :silly:

[tatertop]

4. nice shrub, can we sell them wholesale?

[napi21]

2. Wire Transfer! That's the only guaranteed way you know you have your $$.

That's the way banks do all their interbank transactions, and all large corp transactions are done that way as well.

[radwriter0555]

3. oh dear, really? Watch that he doesn't try to get you to take a check from

a person here in the US who "owes him money," then gets you to send him the 'extra' money.

That's a typical scam, had a guy do that on my miata. I didn't fall for it, but got a HUGE check from an alleged US fellow. I alerted the fellow who's name the check had been drawn on, and they'd been fraud victims before, etc. It was good fun for a couple weeks.

Check out craigslist.org 's information about wire transfer and banking deposit scams on transactions. http://www.craigslist.org/sfc/com/101614687.html

Consider back up offers.

[tatertop]

6. m e o w,

I was hoping they would pay me in..... shrooms.

[chalky]

5. I would think PayPal would be your best bet. How is he going to

retrieve the car? Is he planning on having it shipped over?

eta: I take that back and agree with the poster who said wire transfer.

[tatertop]

7. what is a wire transfer, how do I set it up?

[radwriter0555]

8. What kind of car is this?

I have to know... what kind of person from england would buy a US car...

[jobycom]

9. You're being scammed, if you're serious

That's a common scam, very much like the Nigerian email scam. At some point he will send you a check or some form of payment for the price of the vehicle and for the shipping costs, plus a little overage, and he will ask you to reimburse the overage. You will deposit his form of payment, it will clear, and you will send him the overage or the shipping or whatever. Sometimes you will even ship the car. And then the method he used to pay you will bounce and the bank will take the funds back out of your account.

Or some variation of that.

[yourout]

10. Be VERY VERY VERY cautious....

A large portion of the cars sold and purchased on Autotrader and Ebay are fraudulent. And most have someone claiming to be in England working there long term.

[tatertop]

11. So what form of payment is absolutely safe?

The US deals with overseas sales every day,
there must be a way to get paid.

[Lex]

12. Have him send the funds by international wire from his bank to yours.

When the wire hits your account you should be okay.

That's about as safe as you can get.

[Greyhound]

13. Absolutely. n/t

[tatertop]

14. Will do

Why can life never be easy? :)

[radwriter0555]

18. Well, not really... He's just given his bank account number to the fellow

hasn't he?

Not a wise move.

[radwriter0555]

19. Businesses do trade all the time. Individuals don't. Businesses have

a reputation and future trade to protect.

Unless your car is a rare, hard to find collectors car, there is NO reason for someone from england or any other part of europe to buy it.

[ISUGRADIA]

15. What was his feedback number total? Any negative?

[tatertop]

16. 18 small dollar sales, average 30 dollars: set up, bad

[garybeck]

17. possible scam

it is almost impossible to import a car from the US to England.

I've been looking at purchasing a car, on various places like ebay and autotrader for a few weeks. at least two times people have attempted to scam me, and they were both in England.

I think PayPal is safe, if the address is confirmed. They can still reverse the charges later, but the credit card company (or Paypal) will resolve the dispute. i would think that if you shipped the car and had proof of it, you would win the dispute. but there may be a way out for him, so don't be sure.

Whatever you do, don't ship the car until you have the cash.