Selling a car using Paypal

TotalNoob

Hi,

I'm selling a car and the buyer is in Northern Ireland (I'm in England) and he wants to use Paypal for payment, and send a shipping company to collect.

Obviously I'm wary that cleared funds with Paypal may not necessarily be that.

Should I still insist that funds are in my bank before releasing the car, or is there some protection from Paypal?

As Far as I am aware all the protection is on the buyer's side, so just being careful.

Thanks

sharp910sh

I would not be selling a car using Paypal. Ask for bank transfer only unless you want to be scammed. 

The_Unready

You are right to be wary of PayPal for this transaction. Too many opportunities for you to get ripped off.

Bank transfer is the way to go here.

Sebi_895

I think you need to be careful on this one. The buyer may be genuine but I've heard about this kind of potential scam. The fact that they want to use a shipping company to collect made me jump to type. A friend of a friend got done like this; only difference was he was buying. The note from PayPal looked very genuine as well stating payment had been made. And as far as protection from Paypal, well he didn't get any.
Is the buyer working on an oil rig offshore somewehere remote?? Similar storyline to the scam I referred to above.

user1977

Sounds scammy to me. Does it even make sense for somebody to be buying your car without personally seeing / picking it up? Is it something particularly rare?

TotalNoob

Thanks all.

Will make sure it's a bank transfer, or no sale.

ontheroad1970

Look up escrow on this forum.  There have been lots of scamming attempts using so called third party shipping agents.  

Herzlos

This is a pretty common scam.

They pay (or fake up a payment email), collect the car and then either retract the payment or it never existed in the first place.

Sell the car to whoever will collect it. Whether that's the buyer or an agent is irrelevant. 

Buying a car is a big investment, so a normal person is going to want to see it first especially for a private sale. 

motorguy

TotalNoob said:

Hi,

I'm selling a car and the buyer is in Northern Ireland (I'm in England) and he wants to use Paypal for payment, and send a shipping company to collect.

Obviously I'm wary that cleared funds with Paypal may not necessarily be that.

Should I still insist that funds are in my bank before releasing the car, or is there some protection from Paypal?

As Far as I am aware all the protection is on the buyer's side, so just being careful.

Thanks

NO!

This is a SCAM

You will get an email from what looks like paypal saying they have received the payment and are holding the money for you and that only you can release it and it cant be reclaimed.  This will come from a hidden spurious email address.

macman

What is so unique about your car that he wants to purchase it from GB when he is in N.Ireland? If he did,why wouldn't he just travel over and drive it back. It's got scam written all over it.
I'lll bet he didn't want to view or road test it either.
Bank transfer before collection, or forget it.

maxmycardagain

No
Niet
No way
BACS only please