New car buyer scam I just encountered

[Kevin68]

Originally Posted by the new me

I once had a guy call on a car I had for sale about 15 minutes after I listed it. He offered me about half of my asking price. I told him that I knew he knew that I had just listed it and he couldn't possibly think that the minute that I listed it I would be willing to come down to 50% of my asking price. I also pointed out that my ads linked to a website I had built for the car that had many photos detailing how perfect the car was, plus a complete justification of my price, including a link to Autotrader where he could see every other similar car in the country. I also including specific links to the 3 cars that were close to exactly what my particular car was, at the top of the offerings for this particular type. And I pointed out how they all were asking for more money and I listed the reasons they weren't as nice as the one I was selling for less money. (As it happens, those cars were all on the East side of the country and I was on the West Coast, too.)

And I told the guy that I would never sell it for the price he offered and asked if he wanted to know why. He said he did want to know. I said it was because the car would be sold long before it ever got discounted to that price.

I also told him that it was actually going to sell for my exact asking price with no discount and he could read the website again to understand why. I thanked him for his interest and disconnected the call.

It took me about 3 weeks to sell that car. And every day this guy would call with a somewhat higher offer. One day he called and offered me $200 less than my asking price. I told him that I had just sold the car an hour ago for my exact asking price, as I said I would. The guy blew a 50 amp fuse. He was really mad he didn't get the car.

If he had offered $200 less than asking price on that first phone call, I might have sold it to him then. Since he was obviously willing to pay that price, he should have just done it to begin with.

Oh well. There's all kinds of crazy out there.

I would have saved myself a bunch of time and just told him no, then hang up.