Viewing this car - thoughts on the ad?

motorguy

chrisw wrote: »

It would appear that all the sellers adverts have now been pulled by Autotrader.

Yeah i reported him and linked to the other adverts. Maybe others did too.

That'll tighten him.

:T

Herzlos

EdGasketTheSecond wrote: »

Nice work though you've added the same advert twice but it is the same house that the OP is going to see their car.

It's always worth re-iterating that when viewing a 'private' car, you should be at the address on the V5 and speaking to the actual owner even if the transaction is done by someone else.



The car being at a different address with the owner being unavailable usually means that it's either a trader or stolen.



Just think about it; if it's your elderly dads car you're selling for him, why not just leave it on his driveway and sort it from there?

mollycat

Well done everyone on their detective work!

Must admit I posted on the thread without reading the advert, (post #10), responding specicically to the question asked by OP in post #8.

Advert is clearly dodgy, for reasons given, also far more photos than a private seller would normally include.

(I) Must do better

motorguy

I'd have no particular issues with it if the trader was just avoiding Autotrader fees and advertising as private but making up the whole back story about it being his fathers car smacks of somebody who has no intentions of standing over the car if theres a fault.

Monkey_B

For the benefit of naive people like me, what exactly are the risks to the buyer from traders masquerading as private sellers?

So far I can think of
1. Potentially paying trade seller prices without the associated benefits
2. More chance of the car having hidden problems, as the seller is clearly not adverse to being dishonest

motorguy

Monkey_B wrote: »

For the benefit of naive people like me, what exactly are the risks to the buyer from traders masquerading as private sellers?

So far I can think of
1. Potentially paying trade seller prices without the associated benefits
2. More chance of the car having hidden problems, as the seller is clearly not adverse to being dishonest

Yes, pretty much. Effectively hes a trader trying to avoid his responsibilities to his customers with regards to potentially known faults (what hes picked up but isnt telling you) and future faults.

Hes also very unlikely to be registered with HMRC thus avoiding tax.

Gycraig

Generally they are doing it because them being a private selling massively limits your rights when any issue flags up. They will sell like this often because they know it’s got faults and they wouldn’t make a Profit if they had to fix it themselves.

I bought a bmw recently, heard a noise garage genies there was a problem, bmw gave it a health check for me diagnosed a suspension fault. Brake pads illegal and cyclinders 1 and 3 faulty. If I’d bought it privately I’d of had nearly no recourse as a regular person selling a car isn’t classed as expert when listing. The garage fixed it all but if it had been a dodgy one man band hiding from his responsibility I’d of been knackered

EdGasketTheSecond

i would have thought though that if you insist on seeing the V5C which is unlikely to be in the 'traders' name and address, or if it was then he'd have only owned it for a very short time, that alarm bells would ring anyway? So even without the preliminary detective work on autotrader you'd know something was amiss.

Herzlos

EdGasketTheSecond wrote: »

i would have thought though that if you insist on seeing the V5C which is unlikely to be in the 'traders' name and address, or if it was then he'd have only owned it for a very short time, that alarm bells would ring anyway? So even without the preliminary detective work on autotrader you'd know something was amiss.

That's why it's always being sold on behalf of someone else; an elderly relative, wife who just doesn't like the colour, a sickly neighbour and so on. The V5 details will be those of whowver they bought it from.

NaughtiusMaximus

Monkey_B wrote: »

For the benefit of naive people like me, what exactly are the risks to the buyer from traders masquerading as private sellers?

So far I can think of
1. Potentially paying trade seller prices without the associated benefits
2. More chance of the car having hidden problems, as the seller is clearly not adverse to being dishonest

The second one is the biggie. Since the trader has already proven themselves to be dishonest, assume absolutely everything in the listing is a lie, including the mileage.