On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 03:09:09 GMT, "Toller" wrote:
Oddly, there are no good usergroups I know of for a question like this. ahr
seems as good as any place.
I have my car for sale.
Is it okay to let them take it for a test drive? If they don't come back,
Used to be, most dealers would let most people take the car alone for
a test drive, some would let you take it I'm told for a couple days.
I haven't ever bought from a dealer usually, but it can be hard to
find the model I want, and either 12 or 19 years ago, I did take a car
for a test drive, and he let me take it alone. He didn't say antying
about how long I could have it, and I think I took 20 minutes. He was
right near an xway so that didn't take extra time. I don't suppose
they call the police in less than 3 or 4 hours or the end of the day.
Now they probably want to keep your driver's license, and/or check
your credit before they do that. You probably don't have as easy a
way to check their credit than a dealer does. And any loss to you
will be personal, not averaged over the corporate year like to a
dealer.
OTOH, last time one private guy let me drive the car without him. I
had to go pretty far to find an expressway, and when I did, I couldn't
get the car to go over 65. I liked the model and the looks and the
color, and he made a wild guess about what was wrong with it when I
told him about the speed problem, but I didnt' buy the car.
have they stolen it, or have they just borrowed it for longer than I
intended?
Be back in no more than 20 minutes/an hour. I suppose you could make
him sign a receipt givign the time and saying when he'll be back. In
most cases, the guy who would do that, wouldn't bring it back late
anyhow, and the guy who plans to rob a bank with it, would gladly sign
the receipt regardless. I think people steal cars to rob banks,
rather than show their face to someone like you, but it woudln't hurt
to look at his driver's license, compare the picture with his face,
write down the state and the drivers license number. Then if he does
not return the car or robs a bank and the police come to you, you have
all that info.
If you go with him, and you make him feel he has to drive cautiously,
well that would annoy me as a buyer. I do drive pretty cuatiously but
I want a car that doesn't insist on that.
When I bought a used car two years ago nobody thought twice about
letting me test drive them, but I look really harmless.
Is a bank check secure enough?
When I was in college, almost 40 years ago, my mother sent me a bank
check with money to buy a car (It cost 650, and was nice) and I went
to the bank to get a certified check (do they still have those?), and
the bank told me it would take 3 days for the bank check to clear.
They had a book with the signatures of all the bank officers
nation-wide, but that wasn't enough assurance for them that it wasn't
forged.
So I went a block away and borrowed the money on my Master Card. I
came back with the cash and tried to get a certified check, but they
said it took a day for cash to clear. Not that it was forged, which
they can tell right away, but to get recorded by their computer, which
in those days at least, almost 40 years ago, only picked up daily
transactions at the end of the day.
I put on a sad face and they took pity on me, expecially since they
knew i had been there a half hour earlier and was trying (or maybe I
asked to speak to the manager, and he took pity on me) and gave me the
check.
This was all so much trouble that now I pay cash. Last car was 5300
dollars, but I guess even if it were 20G I'd do the same thing. I'm
careful that no one in the bank should know how much I'm getting, and
I watch that no one is following me out of the bank. I also put a
couple hundred in one pocket, so I can give a random thief that much,
but nothing has ever happened to me at a bank**.There really are not
thieves hanging around waiting for someone.
**Rarely but I have heard of people being robbed at bank atm's at
night. And a long time ago, when I lived in walking distance of a
bank, someone followed a neighbor of mine home from a bank, all the
way into her apartment, or maybe he knocked on the door after he saw
which apartment, and wanted the money. She had made a deposit, not a
withdrawal, and she tried to show him the receipt. I think eventually
he believed her and left without hurting her, although I suppose he
must have stolen something. He probably wasn't inside the bank and
plainly wasn't keeping track of who made big withdrawals, was just
going for the random withdrawal maybe based on how well-dressed the
person was.
But of course your problem would be convincing someone else that this
is safe for him. With a really hard case, you could meet him at his
bank, and the teller could keep the money behind the counter while you
opened your own account at that bank. What a pain. Maybe you have
the same bank already.
Or you could make him wait until the check clears. Of course,
although the bank makes the funds available after only one day, often,
the check hasn't really cleared yet, and they can take the money back
from you for at least 3 days, more maybe i don't know, and more yet if
it is a different Federal Reserve bank from another state.
Except for cash I don't know of anything
safer. And I suppose if they gave me forged check it wouldn't be much
different than stealing the car.
I think it is different legally.
Any advice, or good websites on the subject, would be appreciated.
alt.legal This is Usenet, with newsgroups, and although it can be
read through the web in some cases, the easiest way to read it is with
a news reader, such as Agent
www.forteinc.com which will run in a free
mode, and other programs that I have lost track of, maybe Thunderbird,
Netscape 7 and lower, and I think Outhouse Express, but I'm not sure.