TTT
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- Thread starter
- #1
Something interesting has come up this week, and I must choose my words carefully...
We went ahead and listed our truck here on the forum as available for sale as we have decided to go ahead and part with it. We have an offer from a local dealer that has been on hold until the DMV caught up but as I've chatted in some other threads and PMs with some members here have inquired about buying it privately, so I posted in the for sale section to see if there was a local buyer waiting for a similar truck, and I did get a few replies - one, however, stands out as different from the others...
I'm not going into names because this could all be quite innocent but it does point to a potential problem that we should all be wary of. One exchange was happy to jump above the asking price rather quickly and asked few questions, but the guy did warn me that to set me up as a vendor in his system there could be a daunting amount of paperwork, and that's part of the reason he was willing to make a generous offer, and was willing to negotiate if needed.
Now on the one hand, sure, I like money - and to be honest, I'm not daunted at all by paperwork. I do it all day long and my wife and I spend many hours every year doing refinancing on properties when in pencils out, dotting i's and crossing t's on tax rebate paperwork for solar, for carpool lane passes, for business travel visas, for HOA documents to do landscaping - its always something. At work, I have to help set up vendors in our systems, get them under NDA, monitor their insurance, and lots of paperwork - no big deal - so I said as much.
I also said, however - that we were careful about what we signed and I was fortunate that my company provides essentially free legal services as part of my benefits where I have lawyers on call if needed to help look things over so everything should go smoothly and there should be no delays - and that my wife specialized in banking security so we would be able to avoid any misunderstandings with requests for personal information and credit information that didn't follow correct and standard practices.
After chatting back and forth for a few days the conversation suddenly ended. Maybe I'm just a jerk, or the value of the truck plummeted or interest rates changed, or whatever. Maybe there is no problem at all and it is/was all totally legit - but maybe - and the reason I'm writing this cautionary tale is - there are Nigerian Princes out there offering to buy trucks. All they need is your banking information.
If anyone is looking to sell a vehicle or do any business with anyone - face to face, online, in a parking lot or even at a Carmax - don't let the dollar signs shut yor brain or your radar down. In the end maybe I'll actually hear back from this guy and we'll doa a great deal and, who knows... but everyone, please be careful. Most of us are not in the business of flipping truck and despite being god at whatever we do for our day jobs it can be really easy to make a stupid mistake when you're in unfamiliar territory. Don't be sending your address and banking or Social security informaiton to potential buyers, don't be doing stupid stuff at local test drives, don't think you are going to drive away from a local sale with a bag of $120k in cash so you can hide it from uncle sam because there will be cars following you out of that parking lot.
Be safe, keep your antenna up and your radar on.
(If you happen to be the person I chatted with, please note I have tried my best to be fair and objective here.)
We went ahead and listed our truck here on the forum as available for sale as we have decided to go ahead and part with it. We have an offer from a local dealer that has been on hold until the DMV caught up but as I've chatted in some other threads and PMs with some members here have inquired about buying it privately, so I posted in the for sale section to see if there was a local buyer waiting for a similar truck, and I did get a few replies - one, however, stands out as different from the others...
I'm not going into names because this could all be quite innocent but it does point to a potential problem that we should all be wary of. One exchange was happy to jump above the asking price rather quickly and asked few questions, but the guy did warn me that to set me up as a vendor in his system there could be a daunting amount of paperwork, and that's part of the reason he was willing to make a generous offer, and was willing to negotiate if needed.
Now on the one hand, sure, I like money - and to be honest, I'm not daunted at all by paperwork. I do it all day long and my wife and I spend many hours every year doing refinancing on properties when in pencils out, dotting i's and crossing t's on tax rebate paperwork for solar, for carpool lane passes, for business travel visas, for HOA documents to do landscaping - its always something. At work, I have to help set up vendors in our systems, get them under NDA, monitor their insurance, and lots of paperwork - no big deal - so I said as much.
I also said, however - that we were careful about what we signed and I was fortunate that my company provides essentially free legal services as part of my benefits where I have lawyers on call if needed to help look things over so everything should go smoothly and there should be no delays - and that my wife specialized in banking security so we would be able to avoid any misunderstandings with requests for personal information and credit information that didn't follow correct and standard practices.
After chatting back and forth for a few days the conversation suddenly ended. Maybe I'm just a jerk, or the value of the truck plummeted or interest rates changed, or whatever. Maybe there is no problem at all and it is/was all totally legit - but maybe - and the reason I'm writing this cautionary tale is - there are Nigerian Princes out there offering to buy trucks. All they need is your banking information.
If anyone is looking to sell a vehicle or do any business with anyone - face to face, online, in a parking lot or even at a Carmax - don't let the dollar signs shut yor brain or your radar down. In the end maybe I'll actually hear back from this guy and we'll doa a great deal and, who knows... but everyone, please be careful. Most of us are not in the business of flipping truck and despite being god at whatever we do for our day jobs it can be really easy to make a stupid mistake when you're in unfamiliar territory. Don't be sending your address and banking or Social security informaiton to potential buyers, don't be doing stupid stuff at local test drives, don't think you are going to drive away from a local sale with a bag of $120k in cash so you can hide it from uncle sam because there will be cars following you out of that parking lot.
Be safe, keep your antenna up and your radar on.
(If you happen to be the person I chatted with, please note I have tried my best to be fair and objective here.)
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