Help! car came from Ebay. F@#cked

Same thing happened to me . I asked all the right questions and got the right answers . Paid by P/P and picked up the car . Car was tagged when I went to put my tag on it to drive home !
Started up the road and my wife following me , get 2 miles down the road and that was it . The radiator blue out and cost me $200 to tow home on a Sunday .
There was a ton more stuff hidden and bad wiring on it too .
Long story short , don't expect P/P for SHIT !!!!!!
Next time I will pay someone from the HAMB to look at it for me !!!

HARD LESSON LEARNED !

 

When I look on e-bay, my search peramters are set at a 150 mile radius from my house. If I buy, I go with money in pocket and my trailer. Sure, I miss out on other cars..... like that one.

Honestly, to me it does not look THAT bad for three grand. I sold a REALLY rusty beater for $650 with NO interior, NO chrome and a locked up engine, missing chrome, etc on craigslsit where the buyers could come look. Cheer up. You could be waiting for your free delivery from England.

 

As others have said, if you got the car and it was not totally misrepresented, I don't think you have much recourse. How hard to you think it would be to convince a lawyer/judge/Ebay adjuster that a $3000 car that's 58 years old wouldn't have rust.

Was the guy honest: No, but how much rust is a lot is subject to interpretation. He should have told you it was patch up. Given that these cars were not worth shit a fews years ago, previous repairs is usually a sign of things to come since few people took the time to do it right. I've seen old road signs used for patches.

Up in Eastern Canada, any shoebox Ford that still has body mounts, inner rockers, that you can't see the road when you open the trunk and has less than 3 gallons of bondo is a good car. To a guy from NM it would be a parts car.

 

I have gone to look and help the buyer make a decision with a true Honest look... before I haul the car to them... it is just Cheap insurance to have someone you can trust to go over it... I haul cars a lot and know what Im looking at, so I can be your eyes!
racinman

 

Buyer protection through ebay wont do a thing. If you to take him to court you would have to do it in his state making it more costly and a pain in the ass than it is worth in most cases.
It is a bad idea to buy a car over the internet without seeing it first (I know you are tired of hearing this). You'll hear lots of testimonials on here from people that got burned.
When buying an old car, alot of it comes down to a person's opinion. One guy thinks it looks great and the next guy sees it notices things like- it has the wrong fenders and is full of bondo etc...
I bought a '58 Impala off ebay about 2 years ago from an old guy in Michigan. He was a super cool guy on the phone and we talked for quite sometime about the car and things in general. I had a good feeling about him and the car even though he only had a few vague photos which really were not that good. This all made sense cause he was old and not into computers, didn't have a digital camera etc and was having someone else list it for him. He told me that he had owned the car like 20+ years giving me the idea he knows the car and isn't just flipping it. He assured me the car was not perfect but wins lots of local type shows and he considered it by far the nicest around... The car was a '58 348 Impala and I felt it was a good buy at $25K, I went ahead and hit his buy it now so it wouldn't slip away. Sent him my $25K, he sent me the car. The car was horrible. I won't overly go into details but I wanted to cry when it arrived. I really don't think the old guy was trying to rip me off but think he thought he had a nice car. It wasn't that I was being too critical, it was just not even close to a $25K car so I eventually sold it to get (most) of my money back. My neighbor came by a few days after I had bought it and comments to my wife about how he loves the beautiful 58... should've sold it to him...

Anyway - you're gonna end up biting the bullet on this one. The sooner you get over it the sooner you'll move on.
BTW- For what it's worth I think it looks like a cool project!

 

HAHAHA, yea right...just look at it this way!!

Up in Eastern Canada, any shoebox Ford that still has body mounts, inner rockers, that you can't see the road when you open the trunk and has less than 3 gallons of bondo is a good car. To a guy from NM it would be a parts car.[/quote]

 

His description only mentioned a hole in the trunk,nothing of the skinned 1/4's.And his line"if only she could talk".I had a friend selling a '64 T-Bird & the bidder sent a someone from a service that inspected cars for folks buying them online.This is something anyboby should look into when buying sight unseen.I really feel for ya.

 

Well that makes me feel a little better. I paid $2,625 plus $575 shipping, although I can not drive mine. I don't do the ebay auction but my wife has being selling mostly since 1997. Just kidding it makes me feel like shit also.

For me it gets worst. I wanted a second garage so I could make more room to work in my old garage. A contractor advertising in the local paper gives me an estimate. The guy needs 75% first to start, my wife wasn't too happy but I said they all have to have the money first. He took $8,850 and didn't have any intention of putting up the building. My State has a $6,000 limit in small claims Court. My wife and I did a sting and got $1,700 now he owes me $7,150 we will do another one soon.

 

did you use paypal in any of this? if you did start a complaint with them as well. I've been pretty lucky on my stuff but i ask a lot of questions and a role of the dice. i bought a caddy air cleaner paid 60 bucks was supposed to have a pin hole, more like a giant pinhole. but for what a great one was going for i figure it's worth wasting my time fixing. sorry to hear that but to me the problems you have don't look that bad i would just fix the problem and sell it or who knows you might end up happy with it. what would suck is if the bastard did a great job of covering it and you never seen it till a year later. then that would really suck. i had a friend who bought a 54 merc from the drive mag. just off pics. it was in Oregon and he is here in SoCal. the guy told him it was a old custom that had all the trim removed emblems and door handle shaved. the merc was black. when he got it the car had black electrical tape over all the holes and you couldn't see it in the pics

 

well i do know this little fact because my friend got snubbed on an e-bay deal. it wasn't a car though. he paid a few hundred bucks for a WWII gun or something to that effect. he hired a lawyer for pretty cheap(less than $200) and recently there was a law passed about on-line purchases being "electronic contracts" and basicly it's breach of contract. google it and you'll see a bunch of stuff on it.-i'm not saying you'll get your cash back and a pound of flesh but it is worth checking out.

 

EBAY likes to screw sellers alot more latley. I have a store on there and have had them refund people their money for issues I didn't even know about till the money was charged back against me. It will take around thirty days, but they should side with you. Good Luck and make sure you keep a paper trail of all communication.

Jon

 

bought my 53 chev online and the guy told me it just needed a tuneup. i guess it did if you consider a tuneup replacing every pushrod,valve, valve guide, and lifter.i took a chance.luckily the body was super straight. sorry to hear of your misfortune but i'm sure there are a ton of guys in hear that can get you the stuff ya need to straighten her out.

 

sucks the guy didn't mention the patch but.. its not barrett jackson but it looks cool. shit just the trim looks like its worth half that. whats a car without a little work, seems like a fair price even with the patch. maybe i am wrong but what would be a fair price for the shoebox? 3000 g's for instant street cred in my 'hood seems like a deal

 

i learned a couple of years ago
pay with pay pal
BUT use your credit card as payment
i bought a set of rims that were mis represented over 1,000.00
pay pal no help
called credit card company credit card company refunded my money
after looking ouer all information
and the seller paid for return shipping per my credit card company
because they were mis repersented

Paul Jug

 

Just look at them big ole puppy eyes! Any vintage car person would buy this one.

I think just about anyone that deals with vintage cars has at one time or the other, purchased an over priced junker more than once. I know that I have. Sometimes, ever when you give a vehicle a good looking over, you don't really see it for what it's condition truely is. Love is blind.

My advice. Wait a couple months. Relist the car on E-Gay, say that you bought it on E-Gay, list it very honestly, with everything that is wrong. Have a buy it now price for more than you paid for it. Someone else will buy it, and will be happy with their purchase. Happy, just because it was listed truthfully, and they got what they thought they were buying. Weird, isn't it. That is the way E-Gay sales work.

 

I bought a wheel on ebay that turned out to be bent. Through the buyer protection plan I received almost all my money back. I had to fill out some paper work and have an independent appraisal done to complete the process. Don't give up until you try. My deal hinged on the sellers description. He said "perfectly straight". Let's just say a huge flat spot wasn't my idea of straight. Good luck.

 

I am playing devil's advocate here... and not looking to cause grief or get flamed!

When I was in the body business, people used to bring old cars in that they bought, and I could not believe some of the half assed repairs, mickey mouse brackets and wiring, etc... that I saw! I had to point out these flaws, but always tried not to discourage the owner (unless it was blatantly unsafe!). I have bought many older cars myself, and found things I could not believe...

Looking at the paint on that car, the quarters were not put on any time recently - it looks like they have been on there for years. Maybe the seller bought it like that - maybe he didn't?

You have to realize that you are dealing with a close to 60 year old car, and that in it's 50+ years, many hands were probably on the car, like all others that age...

When you buy an old car - You can't blame the seller for every flaw that you find on that car. What are you going to do when you take the brakes apart and see a homemade spring that someone put on there - or pickup the carpet and find a wood patch on the floor that's been there for 20 years - or when you look under the dash and see remnants of mickey mouse stereo wiring that someone left there 25 years ago? The car has probably changed hands many times over the years, and each owner probably did at least one half assed repair. You can't blame the guy you bought it from for everything wrong with a 50+ year old car! The current seller is not always the culprit.

It looks pretty straight in the pics, all the chrome there, it has some cool skirts and sits perfect! If it runs, all the better. Even if you do get your money back, you will be out time,and probably shipping costs, etc... and when you buy another 60 year old car, I bet that one will have some flaws too!

You bought a 60 year old car, sight unseen from someone who was not the original owner for a little more than 3 grand! If the guy boasted that he owned it since new, or said it was a recent restoration, etc and charged you 25 grand - then you'd have a gripe about how the quarters were put on.

Of course he left the dirty details out, and that's not good business, but overall, you have a decent car for the money you spent.

If it were mine, I would make some panels to cover the seams and shoddy quarter panel job, and get the car drivable - get it running, or put a motor in it, use it and when you are ready - put some quarters on it the right way. I bet after awhile, you'll just live with it how it is, like the past 2-3-4-5-6-7 or who knows how many owners before you... If someone had finished those seams and hid them - you'd never have known, and would be gleaming about the cool car you got for short money.....

You bought the car and was excitied waiting for it. Enjoy your old car, and fix it up like you intended.

Just my 2 cents

AB

 

Mine was listed as a daily driver, tons of new parts, new tires, new wires, rebuilt carb, plus more. It will come back to him in some other form; it always does when you cheat someone. I'll do my best to make it safe. I never would have considered it, if it wasn't listed as a daily driver.

I contacted the States Attorney's Office I have paper work to fill out.

 

does not seem like too bad of a deal, i would buy it, but i already have one in the garage

 

I don't mean to be an asshole, but here's a quote from the auction

"It has the usual rust creeping in around the quarter panels and inner rockers. The trunk has a rust hole and needs replacement steel which is pretty easy to get and relatively cheep."

So the guy said it needed quarters and rockers and trunk pan. Sure, he said they were rusty instead of saying they were patched, but you knew right off the bat that the quarters and rockers had rust and needed repairs.

And beyond that, the car looks like it has great chrome and is very complete. Maybe things are different in Wisconsin, but if I had bought that car for that money I'd be bragging about what an incredible deal I got, not talking about hiring a lawyer or "getting on a plane".

I could put rockers (inner and outer) and lower rear quarter panel sections on that car in a good 3 day weekend. A weekend's worth of work and $400 worth of panels is not something I'd be that upset about on a project car.

Again, not trying to start a fight, but with that description and for that price, what did you expect to get? I think you did good for the money spent.

 

You can kind of see a wave in the bottom of the rocker panel in one of the right hand side photos of the car, the front 3/4 shot. That's usually a sign of trouble, my '50 Fleetline has some waves in that area too. It has no inner rockers at all. But I paid a lot less for it. I have to think I would have made the time to go look at this car if I really wanted it - I mean it's a '50 Ford, those things are dirt common and cheap, not like it's a Skylark or Fiesta or some other rare car that's worth the $4000 even if it's a POS.

The pictures stink though, frankly. Too many shadows or dark side shots, trunk floor picture basically shows nothing. Small, too. I try to host pictures on my own site when I run the regular auctions so I can run large pictures, I crank up the brightness or colors if they're dark... I want people to be able to see the car. Better to have a buyer happy with the car that I never hear from again than an unhappy buyer who thinks he got screwed and tells everyone and anyone.

 

Saw ads for a couple of cars and the photos and price looked great. The I saw the cars at the Mooneyes Xmas Show. I was so glad I didn't waste my gas to look at them

 

Was it this add? I am very hesitant to post this, and do it with the most respect.

Not trying to put salt in your wound at all, and the guy might be a total tool, I have not idea.
But it seams like the guy said it had rust. In the future I would get him to send me more pictures of the rust that a seller says it has. Always ask for underside pictures, especially if you are told there is rust.
I really don't mean to sound like $3200 is not a lot of money, it is. But it does seem like a pretty fair deal money wise for what the car is.
You can't buy much for $3200 in a shoebox. The guy also told you that the engine was shot also now, I think you said somewhere. It really doesn't seem like he was trying to get over on you so much really. It just didn't seem like it is much different in your description than what I would expect from his pictures and description, especially for $3200.

The car looks like a beat old project in the pics that needs everything. The tires are even half flat.
The paint is falling off of it, the interior is shot, it looks like there is no way it would run, or had run for many years.
The body looks real shoddy. I would expect from the photos and description and pictures that it would need floors, trunk floor, quarters, inner and outer rockers etc.. It is more solid in your description than what I would expect. Is the frame rotted out or have tons of cracks in it?

I am not trying to give you a hard time at all, but what do you really expect for $3200 when the guy gives you those pictures of a neglected beat forgotten hulk left in the driveway? And he said it had rust?

Me personally, I would not have sold you the car without sending you pictures of the underside of the car, and all the worst spots on the car, before you completed the transaction and the car left. That way there is no way you could be unhappy, because people do have different expectations for sure. And I would have made sure you had pics of the worse areas and were fine with them.
That is why I have 100% feedback on Ebay.

Maybe it is not that beat old car in the add, but another car. If so, I take it all back.

Maybe the guy lied to you on the phone or something, I don't know.
Since I was not there I just want to in fairness put all the facts out there before the seller is made out to be the scum of the earth.
Check the add out.

I have been falsely accused before ( later vindicated by all ) of selling junk, when really I was selling an old car for a extremely fair price for what the car was.

It just seems this guy is unfairly getting flamed, when really you should have checked the car out more. From the pics it doesn't look like you got F@#cked, but got what you chose. You might have not made the best choice for you, but it was a choice that you as a man made. I buy a lot of cars, and sometimes make bad choices and loose a lot of money.
Also, you gambled hoping that you would win. You could have paid for inspections etc by a professional inspector, then you would have not gambled. Or spent the money to fly and check it out, then you would not have gambled at all. But you chose not to do this. You just didn't win the hand this time, but you didn't really do that bad. For the car not to have issues like this from what was presented in the add, you would have won the jackpot. I think you just got what you chose.

A sincere best of luck with the car. I hope you find a way to make it work for you.

Wil Sakowski
www.sakowskimotors.com

 

I ADMIRE YOUR FIRST STATEMENT ITS TRUE, some times you just want to trust people.

Thanks Guys, now im really sorry I did not ask a hamber to go look at it. and yeah gonna call mt attorney, wait to see what egay does , and not touch the car until its over. BUTTT. THIS IS WERE LIFE GETS YOU, I own a business and a house, thus this means the way I now handle things is by keeping my head. I do want to beat the hell out of the guy. and glad I cant drive to him.few years ago before resonsability hit I would have. but now Im HOME AND DRUNK AND FEEL A LOT BETTER

 

now that i have gone back to look at the ad, i think that was a fair buy..

 

Just checked out your car from this link. Yours looks to be in mint condition compared to my car. Your grill alone is worth more than my car.

 

OK FIRST SOKOWSKI MOTORS
READ THE THREAD! im no tool I build cars for a living, I would have not minded if it had just been rust, but someone welded panels over panels to hide rust. HIDE IT. Thats in NO WAY cool. That means you intensionaly meant to rip some one off. He said some rust but not the whole 6 inches around the bottom is gone! Im done thank you to all who were supportive

 

Even opinions vary - I don't think it looks nearly as bad as SakowskiMotors says above. I'm not sure what shoeboxes are selling for to know if it's fair or not, but it looks to me like a car that would clean up into a driver with maybe a motor swap and you could get some enjoyment out of it. But you can see it may have issues with the rockers and so forth, and as I've said before it's an old car - old cars have rust issues that may not be obvious on a cursory inspection.

I'd clean it up, put a new motor and wiring harness in it, and try selling it again. Who knows maybe you'll come out ahead.

 

Hey fellow Hamber
I am not out to give you a hard time at all, just trying to be a fair voice.
I would have described it a whole other way myself, and I didn't mean to imply you were a tool at all, but that the other guy might be a tool for not being a little more forthcoming, not showing some better pics, etc..

Don't mean to not be supportive, but my assessment of the Egay add was just very different than yours. I would have read between the lines that it would need inner and outer rockers, and quarters, and whatever the quarters attach to.

Have a drink on me, and I think when it all clears you should have a lot of fun with that car. I think it has plenty going for it. If you can't, I think you could get your money back on Ebay for it with a fair description.
If you see me around at a show, hit me up, and I will gladly buy you a beer.
Wil
www.sakowskimotors.com

p.s. I dig your 64 GMC Custom in your pics

 

first, buyer protection on ebay is wrongly titled. it should be "ebay protection". good luck, but don't hold your breath. been there, done that.

why not buy a shoebox from the HAMB classifieds? why not have a fellow HAMBer check it out before you bid? why share your disappoint here? why get upset when others determine that you may have gotten a fair shake?