selling a car-safest payment methods?

hollydays

A relative is selling a car on ebay and have offered the following payment methods paypal,credit card,postal order,bankers draft,the car is worth about £3000.
Are all these payment methods suitable? What safeguards should they take? They have never sold a higher value item before,neither have I so i cant advise them.

soolin

No No No and no again to paypal...ask them *exactly* how they are going to send the car special delivery to stop any paypal chargeback if it is done later?

The rest are ok ish (but bank the draft before releasing the car as they can bounce), but I can't see how an individual can take a credit card unless they have a merchant account of some sort? Assuming they do have a merchant account then car dealing opens a whole new set of rules as the buyer has a lot more rights than in a private sale.

Really, cash on collection is the way to go,

hollydays

Thanks,no offers made on it yet but lots of people looking at it.So they should add cash sale,withdraw credit cards,withdraw Paypal because the P aypal guarentee will not stand,is that right?Sorry to be so dense but I have only just started using it too.
For my own benefit,because I was planning to use Paypal for my transactions too,you are saying all paypal items need to be sent special delivery?

soolin

It should be possible to revise the listing to remove the unwanted payment options, if you can't remove them then personally I would withdraw the auction (or classified ad) and relist with the correct info.

If you show paypal then you can't refuse it later if someone chooses to pay that way.

frivolous_fay

The bottom line is that if you sell something using paypal and the buyer collects, the buyer is at liberty to tell paypal later that they never got the item.

If you don't have proof of delivery (Special or recorded, at a pinch) you will automatically lose the dispute.

Hippygirl

We have sold 3 cars & bought 2 on ebay - each time it has been cash only, paid on collection. We've had no problems & been very happy with all transactions.

user051105

Cash On Collection, No Other Forms Are Acceptable

hollydays

THanks-just looked on Ebay and what they have to say about cash and they say you have no proof of payment,isnt that a bit silly cos presumably you wouldnt release the car until you have been given the cash-proof isnt needed.There may be an issue of whether the notes are genuine,but I doubt someone with forged notes would target this type of sale rather than any other,and presumably you would pay it into a bank for the ok first.

kriss_boy

Makes sure you get them to sign a reciept (a copy each), saying something like "inspected and sold as seen on (date)"

Incase they go for a joy ride in it before the details of the vehicle and updated, and incase in the future they find a problem and chose to hold you responsible.

ribenagirl

I sold my Mini Cooper S on Ebay for £13k earlier this year. TBH we treated it like Exchange and Mart - it was just there for the advertising! (Oh, and I managed to get a few month's Powerseller status out of it lololol! )

There is NOOOOOO way this side of Hell that I would have wanted to pay Paypal fees on that amount of money, so that was out right from the word go.

The buyer bid as normal, then came round to look at the car and inspect the paperwork etc. Because my car was still under a finance agreement with Mini, he paid the exact amount owing direct to Mini, Mini confirmed the agreement was cleared the same day, then he came round with the balance in cash.

However, if it hadn't been on finance, I would have accepted cash or a banker's draft only.

All in all, we were a bit nervous that something might go wrong, but because we left Paypal out of it, it was fine! Good luck!