<VV> Buying and Selling Corvairs On-Line

[Ken Maxwell]

Hi Everyone!

 

I have bought and sold quite a few Corvairs on-line over the past 8 years on
sites such as eBay, Auto Trader, Craigslist and our own CORSA site. Most of
the transactions have gone well, but a few haven't. I had a guy hit the
"Buy-it-Now" button on an eBay ad and he never followed up despite repeated
e-mails. I appealed to eBay and they refunded my fees but they let that guy
stay on as a user. I once bought a Corvair sight unseen from New England and
had it shipped to me only to find out that the rockers were badly rusted
out. I had been very cautious knowing about this potential problem, getting
numerous photos and talking to the seller's agent as he walked around the
car looking at things. I concluded that this agent was clueless and not a
scammer but it still was an unpleasant surprise. I once had a guy copy my ad
that I had on eBay and try to sell it to unsuspecting buyers. I reported it
to eBay and they promptly removed it, but you still see the scam ads pop up
with a beautiful collector car at a ridiculous low price and the admonition
not to use the eBay e-mail but to contact them directly at another e-mail
address. They are using stolen user names that they have acquired and then
get the buyer to wire funds that they will never see again.

 

It is easy to fall prey to user name thieves and although I consider myself
to be pretty cautious, I was a victim just a few weeks ago. I received an
e-mail that I thought was from eBay about a car that I had listed asking for
more information. I hit the respond button and my log-in screen came up for
me to type in my user name and password. I was anxious to get the
information back to this potential buyer so I quickly typed in the info and
just as I hit "enter", I glanced up and noticed that the address was an
"http" and not an "https" (secure) site. I had just given this scammer my
user name and password which he could use to scam others! I quickly logged
into my account and changed my password before the scammer could.

 

I guess the motto for all on-line sellers and buyers is "Let the buyer (and
seller) beware!"

 

Ken Maxwell

Louisville, KY

65 Turbo Corsa 

67 Monza Sedan