Best way to accept payment when selling a car

sh856531

Hi Guys,

I need to sell my car and as its my first one, I don't really know much about the safest way to do it. I've heard all sorts of horror stories so was wondering if there is any consensus on the safest way to accept payment.

The value of the car will be about 1800. I'm listing it on ebay as a classified ad. I wondered about using paypal but as I understand it there would be a big fee and even paypal isn't that great because the buyer can do a charge back.

A friend of mine said that the safest way to do it is to basically get the person to literally come into a bank with you and pay the money directly into your account. But I'm not sure if that's actually a reasonable thing to ask?

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out!

S

adamc260

You could ask for a bankers draft or even a cheque and don't release the vehicle until the funds have cleared in the account. Paypal will take a hefty chunk out of it... You could ask for cash but you always run the risk of some notes being fake and stuff like that.

Failing that, ask for a direct bank transfer of the funds from their account to yours (although you'd need to release your account number and sort code to do this) or as said, you could ask the person to go into a branch with you (but not everyone may be willing to due to the time taken etc)

pitkin2020

DO NOT USE PAYPAL, you are asking to be bent over and taken for a ride. Cash, Bankers draft, BACS or cheque, with anything other than cash make sure the funds have cleared before you release the car. Obviously with cash check the notes you can get a note checking pen for a couple of quid if in doubt.

If you accept paypal you can not prove to paypal that the item has been dispatched via an online trackable method, simply because you aren't going to be posting a car. You can get a letter of the buyer when they come to collect, you can even take a photo of them driving away with the car, paypal will not accept that as proof IF the buyer is fraudulent and decides to start a dispute for item not received. Paypal will pay them back and you will loose your money and your car. The likely hood is if they scam you they will be long gone and so will be the car before the police are even made aware of it.

s_b

arrange with buyer that they will need to go to your bank with you to pay in the cash
or if you can why not just get them to pay it in at your local post office
or have someone with you thats used to handling cash and can be the intermediary
i often let someone else check the cash while i show the customer things like filler caps,any real customer who you have built a rapport with in these circumstances is unlikely to rip you
its buyers that want to meet at 10.00 pm in the petrol station you should be afeard of:)

vaio

pitkin2020 wrote: »

DO NOT USE PAYPAL, you are asking to be bent over and taken for a ride......

worth saying twice

shammyjack

hard cash only !

property.advert

Personally I would ask them to check if their bank account had faster payments for the amount in question. Nationwide for instance only do up to £1000 whereas I've done over £10,000 with Nat West. Then log onto your laptop or PC, not his, and have him send it to your account. You check it is there. I'd move it to another bank immediately by fast payments and if all ok, release the car.

If not, have him take cash to your bank with you and pay it in.

maninthestreet

The problem with cash is that:

a) Might be counterfeit
b) Turing up at your bank with a few thousand pounds in cash to pay into your account might raise concerns that you are money laundering.

zappahey

property.advert wrote: »

Then log onto your laptop or PC, not his, and have him send it to your account.

I don't see what difference it makes as to whose PC is used to send the money but there's no way on this Earth that I would log in to some stranger's PC to do electronic banking.

fivetide

Spotting dodgy money isn't difficult if you know what you are doing.

Best way is to simply feel each note. Run your thumb along the bit that says "Bank of England" it should be raised up. If it isn't it is a fake. Bank notes are not paper, they are linen really so the actual feel is hard to fake. The raised up/embossed bit is there for the blind but works great for everyone else!

5t.

benjus

I'd go with cash as well, at least up to £5k. Having the buyer accompany you to the bank certainly gives better security, but I'm not sure if I'd go to that level myself.

Faster payments is a nice idea but I don't think it really works in practice - too many opportunities for abuse. Also, there is the issue of payment limits and the fact that it's only promised to arrive within 2 hours (in practice it always seems to be instant, but I'm not sure if I'd want to rely on it).

Bank drafts and BS cheques can be forged too. I once paid for a used car with a bank draft, but the seller was a policeman and he took a look at my driving licence, so I'd probably have been in big trouble if I'd tried to double cross him.