A couple months ago I found the perfect car for me. I was changing jobs and needed a more reliable and comfortable means of transportation, so I decided to upgrade. First, though, I had to sell the car that I had, which was a decent car, but it had lots of miles.
I checked the Galves value of my car and found that in modest condition, other places were selling my car for around $4,000. I decided to start high and lower it if a serious buyer came around. I cleaned the car out and put a 'for sale' sign in the window and put it in front of my house. Only two days had gone by before I received a call.
The man said he was interested in taking the car for a test drive before he committed to buying it. I invited him over to take a look at it. We talked a lot about the condition of the car and any past problems I had with it. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. He said it was exactly what he was looking for. However, he didn't have the money on him at the time. He wanted to take the car home right away, and I wasn't complaining. It would have been one less thing I had to worry about over the weekend. He had his bank statement with his name, and he could show me his ID so I knew it was actually his account. He said he could write me a check. After looking at his bank statement and ID, it all seemed legitimate, so I agreed to the sale. I took the check and gave him the keys.
On Monday morning, upon taking the check to my bank, I found out it was a fraudulent account that didn't exist. They asked me whether I had drawn up a receipt with the buyer. I had not. I put out a police report that afternoon to report my car as stolen, because that is essentially what the guy had done.
The car was found three days later in the marsh by my house, destroyed. Luckily, I hadn't cancelled the insurance yet, which is the only upside to this story. I would never try to sell my car on my own again.
