Scam ebay seller Beware!

[Shane519]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/223060829836?ul_noapp=true

Hello everyone! Be cautious of this seller iam_78 on eBay. His name is Randal Fowler from Berryville AR. He listed his 1990 C2 really well with a lot of details. When I questioned him about having a PPI done prior to final purchase he refused. When I asked if I could take it for a test drive or have an inspection done at his residence prior to final purchase he refused. This is his response as of now:

Shane,
You and I can not agree on the fact that I will not allow a buyer to take the car for a PPI on or off location or other inspection since I have told other bidders that is not in the terms of this listing. I can not let one bidder do one thing and not the other bidders. Thank you for looking at the car. From this message forward I will not be accepting any of your bids. Thank you.

JUST BE CAUTIOUS OF THIS SELLER. I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO CONFIRM IF THE CAR EXISTS DURING ANY OF OUR CONVERSATIONS!

[matt930s]

Well, the license plate and location are both Arkansas.....

Doesn’t feel fake to me.


MattR

[Shane519]

Well you are correct, the car does have a license plate from Arkansas. But what kind of seller refuses to let the winning bidder, take a test drive or have a PPI done prior to final transaction. Not to mention...he "will not accept any more bids from me"...ha ha ha! Seems like "CAUTION" is the only way to go here!

[Rick Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by Shane519

Well you are correct, the car does have a license plate from Arkansas. But what kind of seller refuses to let the winning bidder, take a test drive or have a PPI done prior to final transaction. Not to mention...he "will not accept any more bids from me"...ha ha ha! Seems like "CAUTION" is the only way to go here!

Many sellers. Not saying this guy is legit, but I had a guy cuss my ass when I asked him if we could put his car on a lift, which he then followed up by email saying "I'm not selling the car to you".

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

[iamrbf]

Hello to all,

Hope everyone is having a great day today and you and yours are well. This is that 'terrible person iam_78'. The rest of the story is simple.

I had told 7 different people information and one bidder said he wanted the 'after the bid' situation to go the way He wanted it to go. He had contacted me around the 2-3 day left on the auction and said he wanted a PPI done on the car. He wanted me to take it to a place 2hr. round trip. First thing, I could not leave my job and go do it.

But the most important factor is I wanted to be fair to my existing bidders. He wanted me to do something that the rest of the bidders did not have to do. I did not think that was fair to the majority of the bidders.

He "INSISTED" that if he won the bid he was going to come down and test drive the car and then drive it over to, or have a PPI certified person come to my house before he would consider paying for the car. Even if the car checked out, and his test drive was good, I would be held under his control on if he was going to pay the bid amount for the car.

That was not acceptable for me. That is how simple is was.

And by the way I was EXTREMELY polite to this person and showed them the utmost respect as you can see in the statement I made to him. Thank you all for your time, and I hate that you had to have this "Un-Needed" drama brought into your life.

These forums have given us ALL such good info over the years it is sad that this type of thing gets posted here.

God Bless America, sunsets, and Porsches! Randall B. Fowler

P.S. I will NOT be posting on this thread after this post. Ty.

[BLACK3.2]

Some people just get really boned up about concepts like fairness and miss the big picture.

[thamlin000]

Tough 5hit Shane. PPI and inspection is done before an auction ends. If the seller doesn’t allow this, don’t bid. It’s pretty easy. You’re wrong and Randall is 100% correct here.

[matt930s]

Touché...and lol...

MattR

Originally Posted by thamlin000

Tough 5hit Shane. PPI and inspection is done before an auction ends. If the seller doesn’t allow this, don’t bid. It’s pretty easy. You’re wrong and Randall is 100% correct here.

[Alan A]

Originally Posted by Shane519

Well you are correct, the car does have a license plate from Arkansas. But what kind of seller refuses to let the winning bidder, take a test drive or have a PPI done prior to final transaction. Not to mention...he "will not accept any more bids from me"...ha ha ha! Seems like "CAUTION" is the only way to go here!

You do that BEFORE you bid.

Why is it always the ones that mule and puke that turn out to be the ones at fault?

[BLACK3.2]

Wait, he take wanted to win the auction and THEN condition the sale on a PPI? That's bonkers.

[Tarek307]

"scam & beware" are pretty big words to be thrown around, specially when you have 2 posts on here. The ad Doesn't seem like a scam and if you made the guy an offer or told him the price range you told me you wanted to be in then i'm pretty sure he probably just doesn't want to waste his time. Auctions are NOT made for you to bid on and THEN get a ppi or "think about" buying, You win an auction, finish, you buy! .if i was him i def wouldn't want you to bid on my auction, so its understandable the guy didn't want to work with you.

[pmax]

I say it's a flipper trying to beat down an honest seller.

Anything goes in this business.

[smokintr6]

Sadly the cars are hot enough to sell without PPI right now, however it infuriates me when people think they can have inspections after an auction ends. It demonstrates fundamental misunderstanding of how auctions work.

Seller,
Life’s not about being fair. You have no obligation to any of he bidders except to obide by the terms of the auction. If I were wanting to leverage this situation as a seller I would potentially agree to have Shane pay for an inspection and then make the results available to all bidders. Shane would have to agree though, because typically the person who pays for the PPI owns the information.

Also, too many stories of PPI shops snapping up cars that are reasonably priced after the inspection. It’s a good time to be competent enough to self assess your own purchase. Ive bought a dozen or so Porsches over the years and only one professional PPI. The pro didn’t bring anything to the table for me, since I do all my own maintenance and restoration work

[trader220]

I don't have a problem with the seller. I stopped using eBay in the early 2000's because of the BS bidders and the guys who won an auction for my car and gave me lines like..."great I'll be by to check it out next week" or "well my bid consisted of cash and my trade which I value at.."

I get it a lot of bidders can be a PITA. If you don't like his rules don't bid on the car.

What I can tell you about that car is the mileage is very very questionable. The car had about 95k miles on it back in 1999. Then the real fun and games with the odometer readings started. Reported miles all over the map. The last entry was 134,717 back in 2010.

Again, I am not saying the seller has even seen the carfax which I ran to find out the miles issues.

My guess is the odo has been broken for at least 8 years and probably longer. Just my guess based on the mileage reported to carfax from a number of sources.

[juanbenae]

^^^^ that's the highlight thus far.

[davewadd]

Originally Posted by Shane519

Well you are correct, the car does have a license plate from Arkansas. But what kind of seller refuses to let the winning bidder, take a test drive or have a PPI done prior to final transaction. Not to mention...he "will not accept any more bids from me"...ha ha ha! Seems like "CAUTION" is the only way to go here!

I think you're off base Shane. If you want to inspect a car, then you do it before you bid, and before the auction closes.... you can't win the auction, and then decide it's contingent on you being happy with a PPI.... that's not how it works my friend.

[ajserrano]

Let’s see...
I’ll list my house for sale. The buyer then buys my property with a “contingency physical inspection after the sale and the close of escrow”. Escrow closes, Buyer then orders a home inspection which depending on outcome may reverse the home purchase refunding all payments?

[stealthn]

Yeah I gave up on ebay years ago, won two Porsches only to find out they both had been in accidents which the sellers claimed they had not. Luckily I posted what I was looking for here, and bam; a gentelman from Florida had exactly what i wanted, did a remote PPI at the Porsche dealership and paid and got shipped to Canada.

Good things do happen to good people

[Shane519]

Hey Guys,

Wow... I generated a lot of heat with this post! First off I never made him an offer outside of eBay. When I began obtaining additional information about the car, the seller became defensive. When I asked if he could take it over to have a PPI done or if I could have an inspection done prior to final bid at his location, he refused! That all seemed like red flags to me considering I was an interested buyer and offering to pay for some additional information. After he made the comment of refusing any further bids, I felt he was hiding something and thought everyone who may be interested should be cautious and aware.

Thanks
Shane

[Shane519]

Originally Posted by pmax

I say it's a flipper trying to beat down an honest seller.

Anything goes in this business.

Hey PMAX, ouch I don't even own a 964 yet. This has been my favorite car since my poster on the wall. I'm just a cautious buyer looking for his first car!