Selling Used Car - Finance Companies?

[fluffymuffin]

I am selling my beloved car as I ahve reently moved jobs and hardly ever use it and cant justify the tax/insurance for the amount of use it gets now.

I ahve out it in Autotrader and it goes in the apper version this Thursday but has already gone online.

I have had several phone calls from a finance company called Motor Link who arrange finance for people to buy used vehicles. They say they have 4 buyers interested in coming to see the car but in order to make sure I am not selling a hunk of junk and they will come to see it and it will be a wasted journey I have to pay Motor Link a fee of about £70 which will be refunded if they buy it. If they don't buy it then I dont get it back but they do keep working on selling it for me.

I am very very hesitant and am going to wait until it has gone in the paper before I consider it any further as I dont want to loose £70 but I wondered if anyone has had any experience of these type of companies before and they can offer me any advice on their effectiveness as I want to get it sold and it might be a good option for me as it will be less hassle. Any thought from some worldly people much appreciated.

Thanks as ever

[Dave G]

My advice is tell them you aren't interested as soon as they call you. They soon get the message and stop calling.

There have been several reports on these kind of companies, you pay your £70 and never hear anything from them again!!

[fluffymuffin]

I expected that was the case - guess they are just playing on the fact that it is an easy option and yo might be worried about a no sale.

On the same note I got a call yesterday from a similar company called Cars 4 U who do the same but for no charge - its the buyer who has to pay them to hel them find a car and provide finance not the seller which seems much more logical - still doubtful but as long as I dont have to hand over any cash am not bothered.

Thanks for the advice - always nice to know someone thinks you are doing the right thing.

[Porker]

Scam.
You'll get load of these calls from the web advert. I found the paper based advert was much better advertising, it seemed to only be lunatics ("can i pay for the car in 18 installments?" - yeah, right...) and these agencies ("we've got 12 people desparate to buy YOUR car", of course you have...) who used the internet version.
Magazine version was a much better proposition. That said I use the internet version to look for cars, so that dosent say much about me I suppose... :rolleyes: