<VV> Rampy on E-Bay. Now, Predators on eBay

[RoboMan91324 at aol.com]

Amen JR,

A few years ago, I bid on and won a '67 Corvair on eBay.  The seller claimed 
the car ran great, had a relatively new paint job with no cancer.  Also, it 
supposedly had a spare 140 engine that was complete and freshly rebuilt without 
ever being run after the rebuild.  What a deal.

By the way, there were a number of pictures in the auction and I spoke with 
the seller on the phone before I bid.  We agreed that I would pay when I picked 
up the car if I won the auction.

The reality ........ After I won the bid, I called the seller to get the VIN, 
etc. so I could register and insure it to come by to drive the vehicle home.  
He told me that I couldn't drive it and it had to be towed.  Hmmmm, something 
wrong here?  I told him that it would take about a week for me to arrange for 
a trailer.  In his next breath, he asked that I send a certified check right 
away if I wasn't going to pick the car up immediately.  That was another alarm 
bell so I told him I would pay when I picked it up as we agreed previously.

When I arranged for a trailer at some expense, I drove the 2 hours to get the 
car.  Long story short .... the car had cancer showing a number of places.  
When we started the car, there was a distinctive knock (not lifter noise) and 
volumes of smoke billowing from the exhaust.  The owner claimed that the smoke 
was due to oil dripping on the exhaust.  I said that the smoke was coming FROM 
the exhaust pipe, not OFF  OF the exhaust.  The radio was missing which was 
mentioned in the auction.  What he hadn't mentioned was that there was a hole 
in the dash that looked like someone had removed the radio with a fire ax.  No 
kidding.  There were other issues with the car as well.  Needless to say, he 
was very creative with the angles from which he took the pictures used in the 
auction.

The spare engine was not rebuilt at all.  It had pieces missing and all of 
the screws and bolts had many years of road crud on them.  Even if he hadn't 
cleaned the external parts, the crud on the nuts, bolts and screws would have 
been disturbed in the rebuild process.

I declined to buy the POS and left.

To add insult to injury, the guy reported me to eBay for nonpayment.  I wrote 
to eBay and described the car in detail and they dropped the matter.  The 
guy's seller ID disappeared from eBay shortly thereafter.

At that time and since, I would never prepay for a car sight-unseen.

Doc
1960 Vette; 1961 Rampside; 1962 Rampside; 1964 Spyder coupe; 1965 Greenbrier; 
1966 Corsa Turbo Coupe; 1967 Nova SS; 1968 Camaro ragtop
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a message dated 11/15/2008 9:00:28 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes:

> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:37:39 -0600
> From: "J R Read_HML" <hmlinc at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: <VV> Rampy on E-Bay
> To: "Alan and Clare Wesson" <alan.wesson at atlas.co.uk>,
>     <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
> Message-ID: <8A504EFDED9F49FC9161DE5A28EFF44D at OFFICEDELL>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
>     reply-type=original
> 
> I sure cannot disagree with that...  even though I have not always followed 
> that bit of advise.
> 
> Pictures on eBay do not always tell the full story.  The truck in question 
> has no close up shots of typical rust areas and no shots of the underside. 
> Maybe no problems are being hidden, but how is a bidder who is unable to 
> personally inspect (or a trusted 3rd party) to know that when deciding on his/her 
> max bid?
> 
> Later, JR


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