An ethical question about a sale.
 

I thought I would bring this to the valued & very opinionated board of OSO'ers.
Here is my dilima : I listed my 1933 Plymouth sedan Rat Rod on ebay the end of October. The car missed meeting the reserve by just a few dollars. Well as usual all during the auction & imediatly after the auction ended I recieved the flood of emails you always get with people wanting to buy staight out. Well the guy I made the deal with a few days after the auction ended ( not through ebay in any way ) was from oversees He sent me a deposit for $ 2,000 back in november(That cleared the bank ok ) with the agreement that he was going to pick up the car right after the Holidays ( Christmas - New years ) Well here it is March 3rd. & I still have the car. I have not heard from the guy in over a month & a half despite trying to contact him many times with no success. Although after not hearing from him in 1 1/2 months he calls & I miss his call , Well he leaves a msg. saying that he is sorry he has not been in touch & that he will call me first thing Monday morning. Well here it is early saturday morning & he still hasn't called !!
My question is : Am I wrong by giving him a deadline of the end of this month to have the car picked up & paid in full ??
It has been 4 months since we made the deal & that would make it 5 months. I really need the space for another project I am working ( It is holding up progress more &more each day. ) & Most of all It is some of my MUCH needed outdrive $$$$ What do you guys think ??????????

I Will Buy It For 2k. Pm Me Some Pics

2K was the deposit. It was a pretty large deposit considering that the car isn't totally complete. I will send you a pm
What would you guys do ????????

I'd definetly do a deadline and do not give his deposit back.

What he said

I agree. set a deadline and no refund. In good faith you took the car off the market. I had a similar situation with a boat. The guy kept saying he was waiting on a check. I set a deadline and closed within a week. Good luck.

There is no such thing as a Non -refundable deposit. You can only keep a deposit or a portion thereof if you have incurred expenses due to him not picking the vehicle up ie storage, re listing the ad, etc... at least that is the law in Florida.

E-Bay Fraud
 

I would suggest you be very careful. My daughter had someone overseas do the exact same thing after the E-bay ad on her truck expired. We did a bunch of research to track things down because it just didn't seem right. Turns out it was part of a sophisticated SCAM. Never do any business outside of E-bay if someone approaches you in the way they did. It is almost always a SCAM so don't take the risk.

I would suggest you sell the car to someone else and tell the guy you have his deposit waiting for him if he comes to pick it up in person. Don't meet him at your home. I'll bet you won't see him again. That $2,000 is working capital from some other poor guy that got suckered. THat is the bait to make you think it is real.

Good luck.

Then take me to court.....


Set a date, a month sounds fine, offer to let a storage lot hold it for him (at his expense) if he can't pick it up, but tell him he has to pay for it in full this month.

Sure there are a lot of scams out there. But there are also many honest people, so to think that all people approaching you outside of ebay from overseas are scams is probably pushing it. But I agree you have to be careful in this world.