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I'm looking at selling a vehicle online, but have never sold anything online before. Suggestions on sites to use, and more importantly things to be careful of? Anything you suggest I put in the ad? I'll be in TX/OK and Vehicle is 10 years old w 100k miles on it. In the past I traded vehicles into a deal or sold to friends.
I've used both autotrader and craigslist. I also sold a couple of Mazda Miatas on the Miata site, but specialty cars usually sell to people with an interest in them. "Regular" cars work fine on CL and Autotrader. CL is free of cours and you can post it in various cities within 400 miles.
CL also has a great read about how to not get scammed on car sales, although I'm pretty sure most people have heard of the "I'll send you a check for $2,000 more because I already have that check and you can just rebate me the cash", scam.
I've sold vehicles both on eBay and on craigslist. Although eBay gets more 'eyeballs', craigslist is nice because it is free to list (eBay could cost you about $100 depending on the circumstances).
As far as the ad, be sure to disclose all defects.
Add as many images as you can.
Tell what payment method(s) you will accept.
Specify "pick-up only" or maybe "will deliver within 100 miles"
List all details including engine size, actual mileage, mpg, power windows, AC, clear title, etc. I also put the VIN number in the listing so they can look it up if they want.
If you do craigslist, I recommend you refresh (re-start) the ad every 5 days or so, because it will drop 'below the fold' past where people might browse. You want to keep it at top of the list.
Sell online, free......use Craigslist. Beware of someone responding in broken english that claims they want to send you a check for more than the value of the car and you send back the remainder - it's a scam.
And yes eBay if you don't mind paying. Be prepared for a lot of "how much is the reserve" or "what's your bottom dollar" questions or better yet "will you take less than XXX for it?". Same applies to CL.
Another scam are people giving you a money order that is fake. I recommend cash only, or, cash the money order (or check...) before turning over the keys.
Even a cashier's check could be bogus, you probably want to get cash for this car if that's practical.
Sometimes closing the deal at your own bank helps.
If this is not a particularly special vehicle, it's unlikely anyone will travel a long way to buy it, not sure how much an online ad will buy you beyond what you can get from local want ads.
I don't recommend using PayPal for a vehicle transaction (or any other high dollar transaction for that matter). Customer can easily do a chargeback, and PP likes to take the buyers side in case of a dispute.
Cash is best.
Or a small deposit by PayPal and the remainder in cash.
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