Best place to buy used privately?

shiraz99

Not bought or sold privately for some years, probably back when rummaging through the local Exchange & Mart pages was a thing so not sure where's best to look these days. What I've seen by looking on Facebook is that it's full of scammers, rarely see any genuine private sellers there nowadays, is eBay still OK?

born_again

Autotrader?

CliveOfIndia

shiraz99 said:

What I've seen by looking on Facebook is that it's full of scammers, rarely see any genuine private sellers there nowadays

What do you mean by scammers - are you meaning people who pose as a private seller but you suspect they're actually traders?

Unfortunately that's a fact of life when buying a car privately, and has always been the case.  I might suggest Gumtree as well, but you can still have the same problem.

As born_again suggests, Autotrader can be a reasonable bet, but you still need to do a bit of homework whichever platform you choose.

It's a really old chestnut, but when you phone or message the seller, ask them about "the car".  A genuine private seller is unlikely to be selling more than one car, whereas an unscrupulous trader may have to ask you to clarify "which car are you interested in?".  It's by no means a foolproof approach, but it's a good start.

The other old chestnut is to make sure you go to see the car in person, and meet the seller at their house - not in a lay-by or the local supermarket car park.  Again, not foolproof by any means, but it'll give you a chance to see whether the seller appears to have lots of cars parked up on their driveway.  I know many genuine folk will have more than one car in the family, but if there's 6 or 7 then it may give pause for thought.

It's always a bit of a minefield - sure, there are some Arthur Daley's out there, but there are also a lot of genuine folk.  Telling the difference isn't always easy !

Brie

I've stuck to "dealerships" myself.  There's a bit of a network in our area (Dorset) where the main named dealers sell on their older trade ins to a few second hand places so one might be mostly VW and another will be Honda.  I've bought a couple of older cars (10 years) sometimes with very low miles on the clock at very good prices.  I don't know enough about cars to be able to buy one from an individual so figure at least this way I'll have some comeback.  And will always pay at least a portion on a CC too.

fatbelly

I'm currently looking for a car on Autotrader and Gumtree. If a private ad comes up, I consider it on its merits.

I know what I want but I don't want to travel more than 100 miles to view one

shiraz99

CliveOfIndia said:

shiraz99 said:

What I've seen by looking on Facebook is that it's full of scammers, rarely see any genuine private sellers there nowadays

What do you mean by scammers - are you meaning people who pose as a private seller but you suspect they're actually traders?

I mean whenever I look on FB these days for a car all you get is the same, supposedly local, guy selling loads of cars at ridiculously low prices. It's very difficult to spot genuine sellers on that site now.