OT - question about ebay motors & escrow.com...

James_in_MD

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OT - question about ebay motors & escrow.com...

A friend of mine is considering buying a truck listed on ebay (classified listing, not an auction). He asked me for some advice on the matter, and I was not much help. Here's the deal - the truck he wants is priced below mkt (~40%?) but it is overseas in Europe. Its a few years old and has (or is said to have!) very low mileage. My friend has a fair amount of pics of the truck and he says everything looks good on it. Supposedly, the seller is willing to ship the truck to NJ so my friend can look at it/ get it inspected. However he has to put up all monies through escrow.com before the seller will ship it. If the truck is not "as advertised", he can walk away from the deal. I don't know much about escrow.com, but it sounds a little to good to be true to me. Does anyone here have any insight into deals like this or any knowledge of escrow.com? Any hidden customs "gotchas" lurking? I would appreciate any input y'all could pass along.

Thanks in advance!
 
A friend of mine is considering buying a truck listed on ebay (classified listing, not an auction). He asked me for some advice on the matter, and I was not much help. Here's the deal - the truck he wants is priced below mkt (~40%?) but it is overseas in Europe. Its a few years old and has (or is said to have!) very low mileage. My friend has a fair amount of pics of the truck and he says everything looks good on it. Supposedly, the seller is willing to ship the truck to NJ so my friend can look at it/ get it inspected. However he has to put up all monies through escrow.com before the seller will ship it. If the truck is not "as advertised", he can walk away from the deal. I don't know much about escrow.com, but it sounds a little to good to be true to me. Does anyone here have any insight into deals like this or any knowledge of escrow.com? Any hidden customs "gotchas" lurking? I would appreciate any input y'all could pass along.

Thanks in advance!

Sounds like a scam
 
Def sounds like it has potential to be a scam.
 
Supposedly escrow.com is a valid site. but here's some good advice:

Consumers should never buy or sell items to a consumer who insists on using a specific escrow service. Propose an alternative — if that disturbs the other party, they are almost certainly con artists.

and here's another one:

And wiring money to a bank outside the country is always a bad idea, experts say.

My take on it is, with all the millions of cars\trucks in the US, why would you deal with someone overseas? Seems like you're asking to get scammed...
 
Supposedly escrow.com is a valid site. but here's some good advice:



and here's another one:



My take on it is, with all the millions of cars\trucks in the US, why would you deal with someone overseas? Seems like you're asking to get scammed...

Thanks, those are some good points. The main reason he is interested in this deal is the price and the chance to potentially save several thousand $$$. I agree that the low price is also a pretty good warning sign of a scam. He seems to be wary of that as well.
 
Well if he is dead set on doing it, I would at least use a different escrow service than the one that the seller suggests.
 
Thanks, those are some good points. The main reason he is interested in this deal is the price and the chance to potentially save several thousand $$$. I agree that the low price is also a pretty good warning sign of a scam. He seems to be wary of that as well.

There has to be something wrong. Remember - the seller has to ship it to the US. If it's way below market price, AFTER it's been shipped to the US, then either it's a scam, OR there's something horribly wrong with the truck and the seller is looking for a sucker.

Basically - if it looks too good to be true, it is. My advice to your friend would be to not do anything.

One other thing - is it OK for US driving? Different countries have different standards for some stuff - is your friend sure it's not going to get hung up on initial inspection? You wouldn't want to get it here and then have trouble registering it!
 
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