‘Mr.Shark’ coming to view my vehicle for sale. Advice?

[0500hours]

My husband died in April leaving some business debts. I have to sell his work truck.

’Mr Shark’ is driving from an hour away to view at half 3 today - does anyone have advice that’s done this before?

It’s parked outside my house. Like 99% of others who enquired he wants it for Ukraine he said.

Its taxed/MOT’d/insured/alarmed etc but how does he test drive it? Does he bring his driving licence and paperwork from his own insurer to prove he’s insured? He’s just come over from Ukraine he said and wants to drive it back there for the war. What if he damages it on driving?

Should I drive it instead with him as passenger?

I’m still waiting for the DVLA new owner papers to come back so it can’t be sold today anyway, he’s just viewing it.

He wants to leave a small deposit to secure it, but then how can I be sure he’d pay the balance?

Any advice welcome. There’s nobody I can call today to help me when he views.

Thankyou so much
posted on chat for traffic

He didn’t works out the address by google earth stalking.

the van is linked to o/p’s husbands business. Even if o/p didn’t specifically state that in the ad it’s probably on her fb profile somewhere.

quick trip to companies house website and you have the home address.

he probably checked google earth to see the van outside the registered address to check he wasn’t being scammed and the vehicle was as advertised. It’s not unknown for people to advertise things for sale that don’t exist/aren’t owned by them/aren’t what they say they are after all.

I think the big red flag was how he reacted to OP cancelling the appointment. I do understand wanting to do a bit of a background check, but then to use the info he'd found to override her wishes is where my alarm bells would be ringing.
Like other posters here I hope the OP is either ok, or fictional.

I had the same thought immediately I started reading. OP, please keep yourself safe.

Ffs. Some people are just fucking clueless.

Helpful post. Thanks

I guess we will never know!

But at leat the conversation brought out some useful points about staying safe during car sales transactions..

Yes, what's wrong with a bit of research before engaging with the seller. Saves time if you find that for whatever reason there is something about the seller that isn't for you

I hope the OP is OK. What happened @0500hours ?

In order...

1. You are not liable for your husbands business debts
2. The business can sell the truck to you, for today's value less 30%, then you can sell it for whatever you can get for it, or direct to someone else. In the latter case, every penny of the sale price must go to the business
3. Driving to view a vehicle is quite normal
4. He brings his license and if you want him to bring his insurance paperwork, tell him so. He leaves those in your premises until the test drive is over
5. If he damages it during the test drive (this would be incredibly unlikely), you refuse to return his DL until you have spoken to his insurance company
6. You can certainly accompany him as a passenger on the test drive - this is quite normal
7. If he leaves a deposit to secure it for 7 days (quite normal) then doesn't pay the balance he forfeits the deposit - but it would be normal and friendly to offer to return all but, say, £50 or £100 of the deposit to cover the inconvenience o temporarily taking it off the market

It does sum up this thread accurately, it's the epitome of the Darwin Awards

if we still had the laugh emoticon I would have added it but in its absence 👏

🤭

About to add, lots of garages are buying pick ups and 4x4s to send to Ukraine, normally anything around the £3k mark. So possibly not a scam. Just get a cash deposit and take the balance in cash on collection or cleared bank transfer.

Hopefully it went smoothly yesterday

So what was the outcome OP?

I believe everyone was rage-baited or whatever. It happens do often here and people get all concerned when it’s bloody obvious noone is that stuuuuupid.

I've used motorway too. Got more than the initial valuation so was very pleased with it.

happened to my DSIL and her DH...a couple of blokes took it for a test drive and did something to the engine because when it came back, it had smoke appearing from under the bonnet. They sold it for £3k less. Apparently, people take cars for test drives, spray something on the engine, under the bonnet which causes the smoke effect.

Not apparently, it's been widely reported to watch out for that particular scam. I've seen videos of it being caught on people's home cameras if the criminals have done it outside he sellers house

@MarlonHarewood thanks for the link. I am aware that Ukraine uses a lot of pick up trucks and in fact donate to that cause.

Appreciate you are not the original poster making the allegation but nothing in that article suggests that the pick up trucks ending up in Ukraine are the result of "huge amount of theft".

Agreed. Don’t want to be accused of troll hunting but….🤷🏻‍♀️

So you have a car you know runs fine.

someone takes it for a test drive, it comes back with a fault.

you accept this without question and also accept it’s now worth 3k less than 10 minutes ago, and then go through with the sale

at what point did their brains kick in and think hang on, this can’t be right as that car was fine. Why on earth didn’t they refuse to accept the lower offer?

if they went through with the sale because they believed there was a genuine 3k fault when did they decide it wasn’t and they were scammed. How do they know it was a scam?

Mr. Shark. Mr. Kipper.

@SofaFromRomania that was my first thought.

OP isn't coming back
Although they are probably enjoying reading about the drama they've caused.
More people kindly investing time in something not worthy of their time.

Yes, I will be reporting before I am accused of Troll Hunting.

No I am not worried about OP.

@andjustwhatfreshhellisthis scum of the earth aren’t they. I bet the couple of blokes put the pressure on your DSIL and DH so the felt like they had no choice and didn’t know if they had damaged the engine completely

what happened to my friend is a lovely woman came round to look at his van, left a deposit and said she couldn’t take it then but would come back first thing next day

overnight the van got severely vandalised but only in the places that you could cover with signs on the van, no where else

next a 'couple of blokes' came round kicking off saying my friend was ripping of their mother, he didn’t tell her about the damage (that wasn’t there at the time) and demanded he knock £2.5k off the price. He agreed to get them to go away and also because the van was now worth a lot less due to the damage overnight

Aggh this is like the Crow lady post all over again. She went out to try win back the crows who were attacking her in the park and never came back to update if she was alive or not 🤣

Now the Ukraine truck lady is going to live rent-free in my brain too.

I wouldn't sell to WBAC, they are such a rip off. Just make sure the van is insured. You can also purchase insurance for test drives (lasts an hour). That's what I did, when I sold my last car privately. I got the guys details and insured him for one hour, that way if he had crashed the car, I would have been covered.