This may be a lame one, but as you may be able to tell, it’s been a long time since I’ve sold a car (and, in fact, on the two occasions when I’ve done so, it’s been to friends). If you sell your car to a stranger, how do you verify that his check is valid? I have visions of watching someone drive off in my car, only to find out that either the check is invalid (i.e., forged or stolen) or that there aren’t sufficient funds in the account to cover it. What do ordinary people (i.e., people who sell cars more frequently than I do) do? Do you insist on a cashier’s check? Seems that even those can be faked anymore.
My in-laws are coming down next week with my new car, so I’m going to want to get the old one ready to sell…that’s why I’m doing all this panicking
Ya… Insist on certified funds. (or ca$h money) Or even better, Insist on an IBT (inter-bank-transfer) you can’t fake that. The funds are wired from one account to another and you have confirmation of the zeros in your bank account. Usually costs $10-15 or a small percentage of the total being transferred, Offer to cover that cost and include it in the price of the vehicle. Once the money is accounted for, THEN you sign over the title.
Good luck with that!
Scott
P.S. I been away for a bit. Glad to have heard you weren’t caught in the attacks on London. Good to see you back here with such things on your plate instead.
Thanks. Yeah, we got lucky…we were running late that morning (we had planned to be at The British Museum when it opened) and arrived at our Tube station just after it closed. Guess it just wasn’t our time! Despite the attacks, we really enjoyed our visit to England…London is my new favorite city!
It’s funny but when I was a store manager, as long as it was business hours, of course, we would just call the bank of the writer and ask if they had sufficient funds…Not perfect, but we never got any big bounces…
I would insist on cash. There are a lot of scams with all kinds of checks going on these days. Have you thought of selling it to a dealer? It’s a lot safer than dealing with strangers coming to your home and wanting to drive the car, check scams, etc.Incidently, the only way to be absolutely sure that you’re getting a good check is to go to the bank with the customer and watch them get the check from a teller. That is what I have my salesmen do when we’re taking a check from somebody who has really bad credit. As a person selling a car in a casual sale you don’t have the benifit of knowing such things about total strangers so if you don’t know them and they’re paying with a check that’s the only way to be 100% sure.
If you have a Carmax nearby, you can just take it to them and they will give you a fair price based on the wholesale market, condition and mileage on your car. While it isn’t exactly “retail” it’s safe and you don’t have to worry about getting ripped off by a criminal or having seedy people come to your home. If you don’t have a Carmax handy just shop it to 4-5 different dealers and take the best offer if you can live with it.
And - congratulations on your new car. I hope y’all love it!
Unfortunately, I really can’t afford to take the loss I’d be taking selling to a dealer…even at private party prices, the car is only worth about $3000, and I need as much of that as I can get to help defray the costs of the other car. In fact, in order to visit more than one dealer, we’d have to go down to Salinas or over the hill to San Jose, and that’s just not practical. We don’t have Carmax here, I’m afraid (that’s where I bought my Toyota when I lived in NC, and it was a good experience). Wish we did!
I am excited about the new car. It’s not all THAT new (it’s a '99 Lincoln Town Car), but it’s a lovingly maintained, one-owner car, and I’m getting it for what the dealer offered for it in trade. It’ll be a good road trip car, and my Sable wagon is getting a bit long in the tooth for long distance trips anymore.
Redwolf,
One of my hobbies is to buy up cars that don’t run but are fixable, and sell them, mostly eruo cars now (could anyone guess?)
I would tend to agree with those who say that Cash is always the best policy. I’ve only been swindled once, and sadly it was because I was less than vigilant…
I will not take a personal check if I cannot verify funds by phone. Usually there is a phone # on the check.
My preferred methods are Certified Funds, certified wire transfer, or major cashiers check. (I run credit cards too, but only because I have a merchant account that I use for my photography business.)
Try for cash first. If they have the funds in their checking account, they sure as heck can withdraw that ammount in cash.
Hope it goes well!
I’m guessing those days are long gone. I would think that in this era of identity theft paranoia that no bank would respond at all to an unverifiable phone call - not that they have such a person as a customer, not verifying an account number.
