Buying a Motorbike from Ebay seller insisting on paypal...

[DrDoofenshmirtz]

hornetrider said:

mitzy said:

Pay say £100 via paypal and then say you will pay the rest when you come to collect the bike in person.

The problem with that approach is if it's a shed your chances of seeing the £100 again are slim to none.

Wrong.

[mitzy]

hornetrider said:

mitzy said:

Pay say £100 via paypal and then say you will pay the rest when you come to collect the bike in person.

The problem with that approach is if it's a shed your chances of seeing the £100 again are slim to none.

Shows your intent that your serious about buying it.

[wtdoom]

can you not call him up and discuss ( delicately ) your concerns and come to a more adequate solution ? You never know he may well give you a reason that makes perfect sense to you or talk such waffle that you run a mile !

[hornetrider]

DrDoofenshmirtz said:

hornetrider said:

mitzy said:

Pay say £100 via paypal and then say you will pay the rest when you come to collect the bike in person.

The problem with that approach is if it's a shed your chances of seeing the £100 again are slim to none.

Wrong.

Nope. Paypal protection is not in place for the purchase of vehicles, nor for deposits for vehicles.

[hornetrider]

mitzy said:

hornetrider said:

mitzy said:

Pay say £100 via paypal and then say you will pay the rest when you come to collect the bike in person.

The problem with that approach is if it's a shed your chances of seeing the £100 again are slim to none.

Shows your intent that your serious about buying it.

Yes. But. The problem with that approach is if it's a shed your chances of seeing the £100 again are slim to none.

[BobSaunders]

Have you got the seller's name, telephone number, and address details?

Ask to do a bank to bank transfer instead?

I'd prefer someone to hand me cash etc rather than paypal.

How about suggesting escrow.com? https://escrow.com/services/vehicle-escrow/.aspx?

I suspect it is either a scam, ebayer has been stung in the past, a heap of scrap, or seller is trying to protect themselves from you turning up and arguing the cost down.

[LiquidGnome]

Would it be possible to post a link to the auction?

Unless the seller is very new to ebay and ill-informed, I can't really think why a genuine seller would insist on using Paypal. Unless he's very strange and likes paying ebay fees.

[DrDoofenshmirtz]

hornetrider said:

DrDoofenshmirtz said:

hornetrider said:

mitzy said:

Pay say £100 via paypal and then say you will pay the rest when you come to collect the bike in person.

The problem with that approach is if it's a shed your chances of seeing the £100 again are slim to none.

Wrong.

Nope. Paypal protection is not in place for the purchase of vehicles, nor for deposits for vehicles.

You're absolutely right - apologies.
Done and dusted then...Don't pay any deposit via PayPal!

[hornetrider]

I humbly accept your grovelling apology

[moanthebairns]

phone or email him.

tell him you are genuine and you want the bike if its as described.

tell him, you will come see it, it can even be a public place or his mum/dads address, if he is concerned about it getting stolen.

if he says no cash first, fk him.

its a) a scam or b) the bike isn't worth a fk. If people who are selling something worth thousands aren't accommodating enough to let you see it before you buy it, then they are likely an ahole and its a bag of baws.

Seriously, this isn't rocket science.

[Fleegle]

Have all your communications been done by e-mail so far??


Try picking the phone up and dealing with a human being instead, it may make a difference

[peteO]

like MTB so eloquently said, fk him... unless youre buying a 70 year old rare bike then its a buyers market. if he's not accomodating then there are literally thousands of other buyers on ebay selling bikes that are.

[phatmanace]

without wishing to sound "I told you so" - I'd have probably gone to see it before I bid (apologies if you did actually do this, but just didn't mention it in the post)


What is sounding alarms to me is that it sounds like all communication channels are closed (other than paypal) - when I sold my MX5 on ebay a few years ago - I had plenty of back and forth over email, text and phone with the dude who bought it, lots of extra pictures and other bits of information that he wanted that I hadn't put on the original auction. Doesn't sound like much, but it builds up a level of two way trust that the other person is genuine.

Given that as someone else said - Ebay/Paypal favour buyers more than sellers. I think that I would probably pay, and fall back on paypals protection if it goes pair-shaped.

before that though I would:

- Try and get hold of him (address and phone) should be on the ebay form.
- You then either have to pay and hope that ebay/PayPal will side with you if you get scammed, or call it quits, and hope that if the person does decide to open up a non-paying bidder alert, that your comms over email will cause the dispute to be resolved in your favour.

Tough situation I'm afraid.

[peteO]

people make a big deal over not completing a ebay transaction... ive been buying and selling on ebay since 2004. in that time there have been a few purchases/sales that have ended up that way. all that happens is you get an unpaid buyers strike against you and the seller gets their fees back. not a big deal. all this about 'you entered a legally binding contract' may be true but 99.9999999% of the time nothing will happen. it'd be more effort/cost to pursue throug the courts than its worth. So if it sounds dodgy. leave it and move on.

[mudster]

Get his registered address off ebay. You can request details of somebody you are in a transaction with, through a hard to find link. Will see if I can locate it for you.

Edit: link is http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/ebayadvsearch/?_sofindty...

Edited by mudster on Thursday 28th May 11:25

[black-k1]

I've not looked into the details of this but I expect that if you pay via PayPal from a credit card then there is a good chance of recovering any payment from the card company should the bike not be as described.

Risking a small deposit on PayPal would be my approach to show I was a genuine buyer.