Scottd

Ive had my Vette for sale for about 2 months now. Last night I get a call from a very interested guy. He sounded sincere and asked if I could show him the car the same evening. I rushed to dust it off and push it out of the garage and gathered all the accessories I had for sale. Dude shows up with his brother and just drools over the car. Im thinking this may be the easiest sale ever. These weren't two nimwit millennials either, both guys were in their late 50's. One of them was an obvious wrench turning mechanic and the other was a car enthusiast.

After about 10 minutes he says to me 'Man, Im not going to waste your time haggling over a price because I dont have cash with me. Can I come back tomorrow night, cash in hand, and we can discuss price? 6:00 ok? Just after dinner? "

I rush home from work tonight, get everything situated and waited. Waited, and waited. Mofawker was a no-call, no show. Couldnt even give me the courtesy of a phone call or a text saying he wasnt interested.

People suck.

Z06LMB

Welcome to the world of selling! You are by far not the only one this happens to, car lots across this country experience this every day. You have to develop a thicker skin if you are the owner/seller of these over-grown toys. Your car is not vitally required for transportation nor a steal of a deal so don’t dwell on their lack of respect.

Don’t contact that guy for any reason, let him come back to you and expect that he will try to play his form of bartering thinking he’s in complete control. Your need to sell will have influence over how accommodating you are upon these men returning - be curtious, give them the benefit of doubt and position yourself to be a listener rather than a talker. Your goal is to get the money out of their hands and into yours.

Rich

SB64

Yup, I don't get why peoplr don't just call back with whatever excuse but it then stops the seller from running around for nothing. Frustrating but all part of the selling game. Hang in their and hopefully you will make your sell.


RVZIO

Z06LMB

A note to all “Sellers.”

I know it’s tempting but it never serves you well to be arrogant in your words in any ads. If you must inform people of your pet-peeves do so when and if they give you reason to be concerned during their contacting you or your return call to them.

You will never hear any professional say “I’m not necessarily selling, I’m just testing the market to see what I can get.”
(This brings on the feeling from a buyer that you are a waste of time, not serious and probably too high. Expect callers concerned only with finding out your price).

”I’ll ignore you if you ask me if it’s still for sale or Don’t ask if it’s still for sale, I’ll delete when sold.”
(Un necessary and just becomes a negative feeling for the ad. You will find people will still ask. I can’t count how many ads I’ve called on that said this in their ad and yet the car is sold with the ad still running a week later).

”No tire kickers” or “No Low-Ball offers”
(Again, your goal is to attract people not repell them with negativity. People are what they are. Between TV, social media and magazine articles, people are constantly shown how to negotiate lower offers and you must accept this and move on concentrating on your needs).

My mother use to say “You’ll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar!” The same goes for your “For Sale” ads - more flies equal greater success!

Rich

Rescue Rogers

I like when someoone shows up and throws an offer of "cash" and low ***** the price by 40%. the price is the price, why would I care if you have cash? How else were you going to pay for it, gold bars?

Good luck

Gordonm

I agree. What do you think I’m going to finance it for you. I love these car shows with cash in hand. Big Fing deal. Pay for it. I’m not signing anything over until it is paid in full.

Haggisbash

Guy went home, wife finds out what he's up to and nix's the deal reminding him he already has the driveway full of cars.
The deals that seem so easy are the ones that usually fall through first - sales 101

jgilevettes

If you run into this situation again you do have the option to tell they guy that you will 'hold any sale' for a bill or two for the 24 hours he requested. If he does not show up the money is yours and if he does it is your decision to allow it to be a part of the purchase price or not. As a buyer, granted there were circumstances, I have paid a prospective seller $1k to hold a c3 off the market for 10 days. I ended up going another direction four days later (found and verified my current C3 that my father purchased new) and notified him so he could put his back for sale but the money remained his. This way the guy knew I was very serious about purchasing his car.

food for thought. Best of luck. I have seen your posting and your car is worth every penny of your asking price. If someone mentions haggling I would not entertain it if I did not have to!

KenSny

WOW you have to toughen up if you want to deal with the buying public.
The guy doesn't call and you begin a rant online. That's overreacting.

Scottd

Admittedly, I'm a little thin skinned about the subject. I just expected better from these guys. They were both very much into the sale. When they requested to come back the following evening, they gave me a concrete time and even asked me about transporting the car to their residence after the sale. This wasn't a wishy-washy 'yeah, we will call you' but a well defined meeting time. What irks me is that they didn't even have the ***** to call me and say they weren't going to make it.

In the future, I guess Ill put a whole lot less faith in prospective buyers.

Whats wrong with a little online rant? Overreacting would be to give this guys phone number to ever solicitor I can find..... 8*)

chazde3

If the buyer doesn't show up cash in hand the first time, I don't expect them to be a serious buyer.

7T1vette

If you didn't bother to get the guy's name and number, the fault is yours. If you ask for it, and he balks, you know he's not serious.

CJ Willys

For 35 years I sold all my old cars myself. People were generally sincere & easy to deal with. After selling a truck & sports car 2 years ago, putting up w/ nonsense, I decided to just trade this time.

joewill

2/3rd of the contacts for a potential sale are scam attempts
most others are consignment buyers masquerading as real buyers until they tell you 20 minutes later that they will find a buyer for 10% commission and only if your selling price is your current asking price minus 40%.

the rest of the buyers don't want to talk to you, they just want to click buy it now. my last 3 classic sales have been to buyers who either did not ask any questions prior to the ebay sale, or they did very minor diligence and expected me to read their mind.

I have found that those that do want to talk to you are just dreaming or have no money, since they are a no show once the going gets serious

just sit back and wait for your price, sell your car in good faith and be courteous. but a very good conversation discussing price, condition, requirements, where's the money coming from, etc.. prior to them coming to look at the car is always advisable.

jaxlt1

I have seen where a prospective buyer has friends of his/hers call/contact a seller and work the buyer over with low ball offers and set appointments up and not show up. This way the seller gets a little worn down from entertaining ***-oles and tire kickers and finally wears the seller down and makes an lower offer that the seller accepts to stop the bullshit. Unbeknownst to the seller, the real buyer was working him over all the time. Definitely not too ethical but effective is some cases. in this case, seller beware.

Dazaa Rafae Aman

I've been flipping everything from heavy machinery to motorcycles to vintage audio equipment for almost 10 years and have come across a huge amount of time wasters. In my early years i'd waste a huge amount of time with people who had no intention of actually buying anything or lowballed me. Now I won't entertain anything more than a few minute long phone conversation and if it doesn't end with an agreed time to come and view the item I consider the person a time waster, if we agree a time and they don't turn up they get blocked and I refuse to sell anything to them again. Lowballers get told where the door is right away, have told plenty of people i'd rather take a sledgehammer to the item than sell to them for their lowball price and they either walk away or start talking serious money. Negotiation works both ways.

Thick skin is a requirement to selling anything.

vettebuyer6369

When I was a kid in the 70s I sold fire alarms, pretty successfully, for awhile in college. During training they stressed that if the buyer doesn’t buy on first contact, they probably are not going to buy. Lots of people act like they are coming back with money but almost always never do, whether it’s BS, wife says no, or they want just a little time to think about it. “Time to think about it” ends a great deal of sales. If the guy looking at the car does not make a deal, he probably won’t. If he’s one of the rare one that does, consider it a nice surprise.

A few years ago I was selling my wife’s ‘03 and a guy was here with his wife and lost his mind over the car but at the end didn’t pull the trigger but acted like he had to go think on it. I thanked him for coming by and wished him well in his shopping. He was a little surprised that I essentially said good bye with no further sales talk and said he would get back to me. I just said I’ve sold a lot of cars and when someone wants to buy the car they will. He went out to his car and came back in after about 5 minutes and bought it. They either will or they won’t, and frankly I won’t hold cars for 1 minute if someone doesn’t offer a cash deposit.

My rule is no emotions, ever, buying or selling. If a prospective buyer is wasting my time I ask them to leave. If a seller doesn’t want me to take a test drive or is insane with negotiation or is a PIA I just go. There’s always another car out there. I never take comments about my car personally, I just politely disagree if they are wrong or calmly tell them that might be true but it doesn’t affect the price today.

If you learn to completely remove emotion from buying and selling, it’s drastically easier. Expect the worst from people and you won’t be surprised. As you said in the OP, people do suck. Now you know.

78EAGLE2B

I am not a salesman; last job I would ever want. I would starve if I had to sell. Though I have sold a few family cars and three motorcycles and learned a few things from my experiences. There are many narcissistic people out there, and some are car buyers. They may tell you they are all in, really want the car, will be back to pick it up etc., and you never hear from them again. They really never consider letting you know if they are not going to keep a scheduled meeting. Some are just checking out as many vehicles as possible, looking for the best deal before pulling the trigger. Some are just dead from the neck up and don't have a clue. Then you get to deal with the scammers and thieves. Any more, these P'sOS seem to make up most of the nibbles that I have received. Fortunately, I've learned to spot them right out of the gate. I used to get pissed off when I encountered any of these characters; now I just figure it's the nature of the beast. I do protect myself by accepting green stuff only, no checks to bounce, cashier's checks or money orders that can be fake. I always try and be polite and not get defensive. If I have indicated "price is firm" and the guy offers less, I will just tell him this is what I need to get, and there is a little wiggle room but not much. It can be a hassle, but sooner or later a guy will come along that really wants the vehicle and is prepared to make a purchase.

VirginiaVette78

[QUOTE=Scottd;1599762538 These weren't two nimwit millennials either, both guys were in their late 50's.". [/QUOTE]

C'mon now.. i know that my generation generally isnt the finest of the fine, but do understand that there are good ones. A lot of the forum members that you interact with everyday and give advice both ways are these "nimwit millennial's" you speak of.

71 Vert LS1

I sold expensive packaging machines for over 25 years and one of the first things I was taught was to leave the emotions out. Tough to do if you selling your pride and joy. Sold all my previous hot rods either over forums first and then second choice Craig's List. Goof ***** on both.
I always set a price that I won't go below in my mind. Ad price a little higher so everyone likes to get a bit of a deal.
I would not take cash unless the transfer is done at a bank so they can run it thru their money counting machine to check the count and look for funny money.
No shows suck. If I let them back it would be at MY time and place.
I sold a 67 Nova to a guy that seemed a bit goofy so I gave him a address to meet me and I think he was shocked when he arrived and it was in front of the local police station. It went well and he bought the car.
Good luck with the sale.