Car sale

We are currently trying to sell our van and I thought this was going to be a straightforward thing: Advertise on Craigslist and other online sources, respond to emails & phone calls and schedule appointments so that people can come and check it out.

Of course, we were anticipating the one or two odd questions since we have dealt with Craigslist sales before and people just tend to not read the ad the properly.

We were not prepared however for the interesting & hilarious folks that we have been encountered so far.

Here are the highlights of 4 weeks into it:

1. French invasion:

Five French students/temporary workers were interested in buying the van to make a road trip to the other end of the country. 

Two of them came to check everything out and to take photos. 

The pics were then sent off to the rest of the group in France for review.

After several emails (and probably a web conference - who knows!) they decided against the purchase though.

2. The scammer:

We got an email from a guy who is living 80 km away.

He was willing to pay the asking price, but we would have to take the car to him.

He claimed since he is working full time he has no time to come down and pick up the car himself.

My alarm bells went off when I heard that he was willing to buy the car unseen. 

Who does that?

Markus was concerned that the guy would try to start negotiations once we went there.

But all went downhill when we started to discuss the payment.

The guy said he was only willing to pay via personal cheque or a debit transfer.

Both transactions are reversible so we declined and told him that we only accept cash, a certified cheque or a money order - basically, guaranteed funds.

We never heard from the guy again.

3. Africa is calling:

The next prospect was planning on taking the van even farther. 

He wanted to buy the car to export it to Nigeria.

Which was fine by us as long as he pays us first.. ;)

He was willing to pay the asking price however required a "minor favor" in return:
Since we were not "willing" to let him have our license plates nor allow him to drive on our car insurance, he wanted Markus to drive with him to a port 2400 km away since it is cheaper to ship cars to Africa from there.

When Markus asked him on the phone if he was serious, he just responded:
"What's the big deal? It will just take us a day. Just take the day off from work..."

Ehm.. no thanks...

4. The illiterate:

This guy just sent us an email with this text:

"Can I more pictures of inside of tires interior?"

So what did he want? Pics of the interior? Or the tires? Or the inside of the tires?
We were confused, but he never enlightened us...

5. Special accessories:

I saved the best for last since this is my absolute favorite.

This guy was planning on driving the car in South America and so he asked the obvious question: 

"Does it come with a toilet?"

I nearly fell off the chair laughing. ;)