[RKDinOKC]

Depends on what you actually told the first guy. First contact being first contact does not mean first dibs unless you agreed to sell him the car or told him you would hold the car for him to look at. If he just said there would be a time he would come look at it and you didn't specifically say you would hold it for him, if someone offers you anything you are wiling to take before the first guy's appointment sell it. AND it is NOT a matter of it being listed on Craigslist and the flakes that call, it IS a matter of YOU keeping YOUR word if given.

I've sold a vehicle on Craigslist and yes I got flakes that called, said they were coming to look at it, and never showed up. But I never agreed to hold the car for them to come look at it. If they said they were coming I would tell them great and I would expect them but NOT that I would hold the vehicle for them. That takes an agreement with or without an agreed upon price or downpayment.

Now since you have gotten a higher than asking price offer, AND if you agreed to hold it without a purchase agreement until he came to look at it, then I would tell him when negotiating the price that the second person offered more than asking and would feel bad at all about having him pay more than the asking price. Again, it's a matter of what you already agreed to with the first guy.

On verbal agreements...

I recently attempted to buy a car and the guy agreed on a price and to sell it to me. I offered several times to send money to hold it for me until the paperwork and full amount changed hands. He repeatedly told me not to worry the car is mine. Waited two days for him to send me a bill of sale, a copy of the title and a copy of his driver's license then I would wire the payment in full and have a transport company pick the car up. He told me he was having problems with his scanner/printer. On the morning third day he called telling me he was going to his office to make the needed copies. Then all communications stopped. He finally sent me an email that evening saying it would be "uncomfortable for ME" but he had sold the car for not very much more to a guy in his office that saw him making the copies and that the guy had gone to an ATM and given him a downpayment.

Well, I imagine it was much more uncomfortable for him than me. He was admitting he had no word. That guy (I will not even call him a Man) backed out on a verbal agreement, showed he was not a man of his word and has no integrity. To me it did not matter that we had nothing "Legal" signed on paper or that I had not sent a downpayment, he had agreed to sell it and refused a downpayment. The bit about the guy giving him a downpayment was just him trying to justify that he was not a man of his word and had made a new legal agreement because he took the downpayment.

On whether you agreed to sell it to the first guy and higher offers.

My brother sold a 57 T-bird. It had been on the market for a while. A local dealership owner mentioned he would buy the car to put in his showroom for an amount and my brother verbally agreed. Nothing signed or downpayment. While waiting for the dealer to get things together My brother was contacted by an out-of-state collector. Brother told the collector it was sold. The collector offered him $20,000 more than he had verbally agreed to. My brother refused and told him if the local sale fell thru he would contact him. Brother tells people his integrity cost him $20K.