SO up to now I have always bought cars face to face. I know I'm late to the buying cars off the internet game.

I'm looking at a VW Mk1 pickup a few states away. Seems like a decent little truck, will make a good platform to teach Theo how to drive stick and will make a fun daily for me so I'm not always putting miles on the 4runner.

But! How do you do the payment / title part? I know I have heard escrow companies, but I've also heard many of them are scams.

If you have done it, what's your preferred way. Who is good and who is to be avoided?

Zach

As a seller, I would never accept an escrow arrangement. Buyer gets the car and doesn’t agree it’s what’s represented. Doesn’t release escrow. Now the car is with buyer. How does the seller get it back? On the sellers dime? - no thanks!

Best way is always in person. Fly in, exchange money for title, drive home. Or fly in, exchange money and title, fly back and ship car. Or drive there with a friend, drive home.

I've bought two cars on eBay, including my 914. It was a long time ago but IIRC, I showed up with a cashier's check, they signed over the title, and I drove off.

I take cashiers checks but wait for them to clear. They can be faked and I have two deposits to prove it. I didn’t get hit since I waited a week before sending the product. They initially showed as funded in my account and then reversed a couple days later. I’ve had plenty of people tell me cashier’s checks are basically cash. I went in to my bank and talked to a very knowledgeable manager. He said cashier checks are like cash - until they aren’t. They are used in scams all the time.
Wired money is 99.9% safe.

Also, I have my standards for acceptable payments. If people don’t accept them, I learned it’s better to walk away than to compromise them. Trust but verify. I also implore people to do their due diligence on me. Most don’t but I still suggest that they do.

Flying in has been a bust and added expense plus frustration when the car didn't align with the seller's description (or photos). Granted, the last time for me in that scenario was more than 20 years ago.

Anyway, in the digital world it's not difficult to make a safe buy. The last three collector cars I've purchased included a pro PPI, phone discussions, FedEx'd documents and wire transfers to complete the sale. No muss or fuss. YMMV

@bullethead

How did you do the wire transfer? From your bank, or a western union or something? Did you send money after you got the title? Before?

I'm a total noob at this.

Zach

I bought 3 914's out of state, sight unseen, in the last 10-15 years. IIRC, I paid one of them through PayPal. The other 2, I definitely sent cashier's checks. That said, I bought one of them from a reputable guy here, so I wasn't concerned. With the other 2, I researched the heck out of them, and we exchanged I.D.'s via email (with ssn's blacked out) just to give a level of comfort to each person.

I also looked up the seller's names on the internet and social media platforms just to verify that they were who they said they were. You can usually find out at least one obscure fact about someone and subtly bring it up during an additional phone call. For instance, one guy had posted his 914 for sale and included a youtube video on his car. Upon looking up that video on his 914, he had other videos like being an ultra runner. Once you find out something that they are "into" you can usually feel them out to make sure they are legit. Granted nothing's better than buying in person.

I guess my point is that I wasn't really as concerned about the car's condition as I was about sending someone $10K and getting scammed. I think if you do some amount of due diligence, you can get a good idea if someone is legit. Just my 2 cents.

Zoinks, would have thought Escrow was the way to go.

When I bought my 914-6, there was a bit of trust on both sides. I sent him a cashiers check and he sent me the signed title. Flew down to pick up the 914 with new plates and registration under my name in hand.

Seller could have easily sold the 914 to someone else, cashed my check and then said "What 914?"

I guess walking into a bank and either transferring funds or having the seller watch the bank create the cashiers check would work?

I can do a wire from my phone but if you haven’t done one before, best to just go to your bank and they will do it for you in 10 minutes. Just remember, when you send a wire, there are no take backs. Even if it’s fraud, your money is gone.

This is interesting stuff. Info I really hadn't thought about before.

3-ish years ago I finished up my last 356. Sold it to an unknown person, used a Dealer and Escrow to transfer funds and paperwork. But that was a $165k car. The 356 before that was $80k and I did the same thing.

I think for me, there's a threshold of funds being exchanged. Don't know exactly what that would be now. A $1,500 car wouldn't sweat it, but maybe anything over $10k I would start to be very cautious.

Bank wire transfer only.
No third party anything

Gotta get a decent discussion going.
Then…you wire money, once I see it, I fedex the title overnight.

Car movement is on you

Bank wire all day long. I would never accept a Cashier's Check unless I was at the actual bank it was drawn on and the bank cashier handed it to me directly. Fraud is rampant these days.

I feel there are so many scams and variations that you have to know your seller.
Agree cashiers checks are mainly thing of the past unless you hold something (like the title) until it clears.
Once bought a car across the country and used PayPal ( I paid the fee) as it was protection especially if your pp account is backed by American Express card ( not master or visa)
I felt the fee was my insurance.

@VaccaRabite Exactly as described by @r_towle ... the wire fee isn't onerous, seller is happy, documents are provided, smooth transaction. In my experience, the PPI company (or paid professional performing the task) will provide feedback on the seller as well as the car.

If they tell you something is hinky, all you've spent is a few wasted phone calls/emails and the PPI fee.

For me this has only applied to Domestic sales, though. I've tried to find reputable brokers in Europe without success (so far... maybe the right connections are eluding me). South America is worse.

Though I haven’t read through the PayPal agreement, I was told PayPal does not cover car purchases, even when you pay for goods and services. I just use them for deposits but make sure to read the fine print if you are using them as some sort of buying insurance.

As Mark said, best way is to do the deal in person, then either drive home...or fly home with the title and arrange transport later. if the car doesn't live up to the description, that plane ticket will be the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy.

The challenge with doing this long distance is the delay (sometimes slight, sometimes longer, but never zero) between funds being transferred and actually taking posssion.

For those situations a service like escrow.com is great. The seller knows the car is actually sold (tons of buyers do flake out) and the buyer is protected by not releasing the funds without posession. The great thing about that service is you can set whatever terms you agree to for release. I bought my very first 914 that way. The money was sent as soon as the price was agreed, and released when the shipper arrived to pick up the car about a week later. The seller called me when the shipper arrived, and I released the funds, which happened instantaneously, as they were standing there. The seller could then verify that the funds cleared before allowing it on the truck.

Escrow eliminates all possibility of fraud or reversing checks / wires because escrow companies are bonded to cover the funds their holding. It's the safest method hands down. It's why nearly all high dollar transactions like buying a home are done that way.

That said, I respect any seller's rights to determine what's acceptable to them. And sometimes you just have to make a judgement call and take a leap of faith. For me, buying long distance is a last resort!

A wise man once told me...don't buy a car without buying the seller.

I sold my 1939 Cadillac to Jim Beam Distillery. We used an escrow since they are in Kentucky and I am in CA. The way we agreed upon was, I sent the title to escrow, they sent funds. The buyer sent an inspection company to look at my car. After his 15 page report was written, they accepted the condition as I represented it and released the funds. It took them about 20 days to send a car carrier to get the car, and I had long been paid. We agreed that upon inspection by the third party of their choosing, they either accepted the sale or rejected. Upon acceptance, the funds needed to be released.

Like any contract, you just need to specify terms for escrow and agree on them. They paid for the inspection by the way. It worked well and I would do it again in a heartbeat, it was the safest transaction I had ever done.

Bought my boat this year through escrow. The whole thing made me nervous but how it worked was before I hooked on to the trailer the owner and I both had to call a service and provide a PIN number to authorize the transfer of funds. It actually worked well

Pretty new to the game— bought first classic only 3 years ago. And my second (and likely final) is the 914 I just took possession of. In both instances, I wired money, title was sent to me.

In the first instance (‘59 Karmann Ghia), the seller was widely known (and I might add lionized) on TheSamba. The actual money/car trade-off went smoothly but the car was not nearly as well-sorted as described. As I couldn’t afford to have someone else put it right, I had too. But the problem was that I had never worked on any car before! The denizens of TheSamba rallied and advised me through the process. Thanks to them I ended up with a bunch of new skills and the fun of creating an award-winning automobile!

In the second instance (‘73 Porsche 914 2.0), I bought it on BAT after having a member of this forum (Thanks Mike!) look at it for me — and in the process determine there actually was a dealer with a car. Again, simply wired funds and title was sent to me. My thinking here is, being a dealer, he credibility was on the line with BAT.

All this said, I’m a pretty lucky guy, so your mileage may vary.

I sell cars three ways.
Bank Wire
Cash in hand.
Check but I hold the car and title until in clears, which can be two weeks.

I prefer bank wire, it's clean and easy.

If you can always go look at the car and if it's not a lot of money, just bring cash, buy it and leave with the car and title. Always keep it as simple as possible.

I prefer a Halliburton briefcase full of Benjamins. The only problem is that you have to count it & usually twice. An old girlfriend accepted cash for her Chevy. They counted it three times & kept coming up short. The buyer got pissed as hell & claimed the bank fucked up. On second thought, maybe a bank or secretary's check is best. Look for the watermark & go together to the bank to cash it. The banks do screw up. I had a check for about 5 K$ way back when & the stupid teller deposited it in the issuers account instead of mine. I was too dumb to check the transaction until I got home. Go figure.

This was a pile I used to buy this car, it took awhile to count it. The trick is to count it in thousands, making piles of $1000. Then you count the piles.

How about "evo safe trade"?

(No, don't use them...)

--DD

I'm late to this discussion, however.

The biggest concerns are usually, does vehicle really exist, is it in the condition represented, does seller have title.

In the past I have sought out assistance from persons on forums like this, or members of clubs I belong to. You can often find someone willing to go check it out. If the person checking is known and trusted, I have sent them check in sellers name. If all checks out, they exchange check for title. If seller wants, I am usually willing to wait a few days for check to clear before transport of the actual vehicle.

When selling, I will have them send copy of bank check. I will then call their bank to confirm legitimacy. Some banks won't provide that info, but usually you can just call a different branch until you get an accommodating person.

Wire transfer is probably the safest, but still not 100% I sold a 356 last year for good money and even with wire transfer I was a bit nervous

I have used Paypal for smaller transactions

but cash is king

Looks like a wire transfer is what I'm going to be doing.

I've talked with the shipper and will be paying cash on delivery.
Did a Facetime call with the seller for a walkaround over the vehicle.

I was going to try and drive up and pay for it with cash (and have dinner with Ed Morrow while in the area) but getting schedules to match up has been challenging on my part. Fall is busy.

Zach

Wire transfer made today. Now we see if I'm a good judge of character or just an easily swindled chump. Please be real!

Zach

I bought my 930 like that. Flew to Denver, bought the car in person, had a shipping company ship it to my house.

'86 930

I wouldn't recommend driving it unless you know a lot about the vehicle. A buddy at work bought a VW air-cooled van in Chicago; flew to Chicago, bought the van, started driving back to PA and got about 60 miles out and the engine seized. Took him 4 months to get it to PA.

Click to view attachment
So the outcome.

I attempted a wire transfer only to find out that the sellers bank did not accent them. *sigh*. However the seller did not know this and FedExed me the title before money was in her account.
I ended up (once it was confirmed that the money was safely in my account) Venmoing the cash to the seller over a couple of days, since there are limits to how much you can send per day.
The seller was super cool to work with, and had a couple of these trucks so I’ll be following her to see what she does with them.

Title is in my hands and the Caddy should be in my driveway tomorrow.

Zach

Good luck. Hope it all works out.

How does this “bank” actually do business??

Good luck, I’m jealous of your new ride!