brooks

I have bought (and sold) quite a few things on Ebay, some of which have been bargains. But have any of you people ever bought a car on Ebay? What were your experiences (good and bad)?
Thanks
Simon

GaryCat

I bought one when I need a cheap runabout while I was between scoobies. Made £300 profit when someone rear-ended me and wrote it off.

David_Dickson

I have advertised 3 cars there, the first two auctions were ruined by timewasters and scammers. The third, a dud 106 diesel which sold for £77, the guy is due to collect it tomorrow.

Clarebabes

I bought my Clio Cup off Ebay, but it was from a dealer, so I had a bit of protection.

Tiggs

sold 2 cars on there....would NEVER use any other way again. Ebay is perfect!

both cars sold when trader had been useless, easy sales and got what i wanted.

T (one was £4k, the other £18k so both ends of the market)

harvey

iTrader: (48)

I bought a car on e-Bay. Advertised as HPI clear. I am not a naive sort of guy but it turned out to be HPI Recorded, nor was it as advertised. Quite a lot crawled out the woodwork when I went to the local Peugot dealers next day to get the alarm fixed. 52 car.
As I considered I had been defrauded and the vendor went to ground, I repoted it to the CID, Trading Standards and e-Bay. The police took the view that it was a civil matter and they might not be able to get enough proof etc. etc. One of my motives for reporting it to them was to ensure it did not happen to anybody else and it was possible this was not a one off. A complete waste of time. Chocolate fire guards.
Trading Standards are still dealing with it and I do not wamt to say more on that at present.
e-Bay. Well being a good sort of a guy I did not want it to happen to anybody else and I wanted to alert e-bay to what had happened. What a total utter waste of my time. The impression given on the e-Bay site and by their advertising is of a caring community spirit. I was naive enough to be taken in by this. E-mails if they were answered, received automated responses that took no account of the information passed on to them, the only published address was a P.O. Box in Dublin and they have no UK phone number. I put considerable effort into trying to contact them and eventually found out their MD was Douglas McCallum at 50 Victoria Embankment, EC4Y 0DX but even he did not extend the courtesy of a reply to a brief letter suggesting there was a problem with his Customer Services department and enclosing a fully documented history.
If you are going to buy anything on e-Bay, exercise extreme caution, go into it with your eyes open, remember e-Bay is a safe haven for many scammers, and in respect of something like a car be absolutely scrupulous with your checks to validate the vehicle prior to purchase.
In my case, what I should have done was asked for a copy of the log book while I was bidding. I should also have asked for the HPI report at the bidding stage. I will not bore you with the details of the "missing" HPI report which was later proven to be a fiction but like I said I am not normally naive but I was conned this time. If you ask for a copy of the log book and establish your bona fides and the vendor will not fax a copy of the V5 - walk away. With the V5, if you are a successful bidder you can then run a HPI check for £39.95. This just might save you travelling a long way but if you do travel, do not part with any money until you have examined the vehicle rigerously and engage someone like the AA to conduct an inspection if that will be more cost effective or they are more competant than you at this sort of thing.
Do not feel that because you have the winning bid and you have travelled a long way that you need to complete the transaction. Err on the side of caution.

When the dust has settled I intend to write up a full report on my experience, the most shocking part of it being the atrocious conduct and lack of interest from e-Bay and I will publish this on my site www.geocities.com/harveysmith3000 .

As a result of my experience I now discover that I am only one of many people to have discovered how uncaring and dissinterested e-Bay are when problems arise with transactions. No wonder scammers like it.

paul inastate

but was well outbid on what i thought it was worth it was a suzuki jeep but everyone wants them to go off road in

Wish

iTrader: (2)

Trying to sell one at the moment on there with very little luck !

2 days to go and cheap as chips !

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...e=STRK:MESE:IT

thecirsch

I bought my current run around off E-bay. However, I went and viewed it first and struck a good deal with the bloke off-line .
Since then I've viewed two more cars, glad I did so as I would have regreted bidding and finding out that one had it's head gasket on the way out and the second had questionable damage to the front/bonnet. I wanted to view a third, but the seller refused point blank to let me go and see it, although I was prepared to do a 120 mile round trip

In answer to the question, I would buy another off the site, but I would have to view it first. You wouldn't pay for a car out of Exchange and Mart then go and collect it would you?

willy

Ive sold an Audi 100 I got for next to nothing.
I made sure it was HPI clear before I bought it.
I then did a full valet and full service.(easy thing to work on and cheap parts)
I took 6 pics and sold it on ebay.
I said if the car wasnt as described, then the winner didnt have to buy.
The winner came from Coventry to Saddleworth(north of Manchester), with the cash and took 5 mins to see I was being honest,paid and left a happy man.
If I was buy a car, I would expect the same.
How many dodgy pics do you see on ebay.
Clear pics.. even if there are bad bits will always go a long way.

*****

apples24

iTrader: (1)

not being funny bt ive advertised 50+ cars on ebay and if a bidder asked for a copy of the logbook id tell them to **** off lol


i do state weather or not the cars are hpi clear


it is up to the purchaser to carry out the neccesary checks

i apreciate your concern above sorry to here you bought a lemon, but quite simply you handed over cash for a 52 plate car with no hpi check carried out, thats pure madness

you admit you made a mistake and i do feel sory for ya but to be honest its kinda your fault, but yes obviously the seller missdescribed the car and maybe cival matter may be possible if they are trade

Tiggs

i never understand ppl having a go at ebay....ebay is just the shop window where the advert has been stuck.

use it to find you item...how you then close the deal is up to you.

T

CraigH

People have a pop at ebay because they give the impresson they protect sellers/buyers if deals go wrong, which is absolute bull. They do sweet fa.

If you were passing a shop, looked in the window, saw something you liked and there was a big sign stating buyer protection etc, then went and bought something only to find it wasn't as described or dodgy in someway, you'd have some recourse with the shop.

Ebay make enough money and should have some accountability or at least some way of contact if something goes wrong imo.

fatherpierre

Bought and sold a few on there. If you're selling you will almost always get a lower price than selling through autio trader, etc. Plus there are loads of ***** that bid for a laugh and then never turn up.

I always ban anyone with a rating of less than 10 unless they provide their details.

You just have to savvy the multitude of rouge traders on their - if it's cheap there's a reason for it.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

'Plus there are loads of ***** that bid for a laugh and then never turn up.'

Just like the trader then, if someone says they are coming to look, I politely insist on a contact number and name, the times I have waited around for some bell end to turn up and then not have the decency to call to say they are not coming beggars beleif, so now if it hppens I wait a day or so and then call them to ask where they were, say something like I missed my kids school concert to wait in for you.

Tiggs

ban low rating bidders, make it clear inspection/pics are avalible first...email EVERY bidder and confirm their intentions are genuine.

i sold 2 cars for MORE than they were in trader for, both cars had left my drive within 48 hrs of the end of auction.

treat ebay as a contact means for meeting buyers/sellers...nothing more.

T

fatherpierre

You were lucky then, Tiggs. A mate of mine is a trader with a forecourt and he often buys from ebay to sell on his forecourt because they go so cheap on there.

Tiggs

cheap cars sell cheap.

if you have a nice car (relative to others in the same age/££/etc) and do a good add with LOTS of pics and offers to demo prior to bidding it will sell well.

T

gsm1

I've bid on a few but never won. I always ask the seller if they are the actual owner or a trader. One seller on Ebay claimed they were not traders but bought cars for film production and then sold them on....yeah whatever mate, I'm sure some suckers will believe you.

harvey

iTrader: (48)

Craig: That is basically what I am saying. e-Bay do not give a stuff and it allows scammers to continue cart blanche. The scammers know e-Bay is a safe place for them. The car was advertised HPI clear, there was a convincing excuse as to why the HPI report was not available when I inspected the car, 300mls from home and it was only next day at the main dealers that the true history was unfolding.
The seller was a private individual, or so he said. It now looks as if he is involved in the motor trade. Your scammer is not going to tell you the truth.
If I were buying another vehicle I would offer to establish my bona fides but I would not travel to view the vehicle without having seen a copy of the logbook, I would ask if the vehicle was HPI clear and I would want to see any report. Afterall these things would make me a keener buyer would they not. On anything more than a banger I would want to see it was HPI clear before spending money going to inspect unless it was pretty local.
I hope others can learn from my experience.
BTW. The car is not a lemon. Nice, clean, low genuine mileage vehicle but it is recorded as a Category D insurance loss. ie The insurers decided it was not a viable repair although it was repairable.

dba

to be fair though,this would apply to any car,Ebay is no different.You can scammed buying privately just as easily if you don't ask those questions.

I would also suggest that you need to be careful if a zero bidder starts to bid late.This happened to me,it was obvious the 'owner' was helping himself

CooperS

I bought my golf off ebay, got a bargain cos I asked the guy to sell outside ebay got it for £8,500 and the current bid was at £8,600 with 3 hours left, I reckon it would have gone for over 9K (X Reg TDI 130 with 28K miles) but he didn't want to get stung with the fees. All good so far (5 1/2 K miles later).

CooperS

P.S. I did HPi Check etc first.

Got the guy to send me a digi pic of the vin plate on the windscreen.

elgordano

buying a car off ebay should be the same as buying any car.
get the AA/RAC to check it over first otherwise you just don't know what you are getting.

Jamo

iTrader: (23)

you can do a hpi check yourself you know online? im guessing you saw it, it looked great and its what you were after and you took his arm off with it.

but really that is beyond me, I dont want to kick you when you are down, but who in this day and age, buys an expensive car without doing an hpi check yourself? £30 could have saved you loads.

*note* when buying a car from anywhere, dont let your emotions get the better of you.

ukdave

Ive got a mate that fetched a opel ascona (1978 i think) from germany off of e-bay couldnt believe that he went that far for a 300 quid car then drove it bk from germany with no tax mot and insurance and still on the german plates(drove round for a month like this when he got it bk)asked him what he`d have done if he`d have bin stopped over here,he just said its ok i speak german(lol)i`ll make out im visiting!!! He`s bought other car parts aswell and never had any bother though. (he wanted the ascona for a rally replica)