Whats up with all the, "Im selling this for a friend......" on ebay lately?

[HKCharger]

anyone else noticed alot more of this??

[G-man]

Never look at ebay. Ppl seem to get screwed on it all the time. Buy things differently, ebay is a joke.

[oldcarnut]

There may be a couple reasons with more of the "I'm selling for a friend" listings.  For some it's a legit listing a car for a friend or family member that does not have an Ebay account but in most of those instances they list the "friends" telephone or contact number to get the info. Seems like a lot more cars are going the auction route because of tight consumer money.  I have had some people ask me if I would put a car on for them because of the same reason and they didn't want to go through the account registration bit for one time use sale. I didn't really want to put up with the emailing etc. either for someone else's car and directed them to sites instead that they could advertise for free themselves.  Other times Ebayers are selling cars for broker fees and profit but the title is in someone else's name and I guess maybe they think that the "It's not my car" clause takes them off the hook for any problems.  I've tried selling one car of mine--a 31 Ford streetrod--on ebay a while back and didn't have much luck.  Also I don't really like the idea of selling a car to someone that hasn't looked at it in person as much as I don't like to buy one like that.  I'm going to put the 67 Charger on it soon as I can get to it but I'm not looking forward to it.  I think people will get screwed on just about any way of selling--locally or internet--even on here as been posted and I think a good portion of it falls on the buyer for not being thorough or scrutinizing enough or buying in a risky way.  So far I've only bought one thing on Ebay that wasn't what it was made out to be so maybe I've been fortunate.

[Big Lebowski]

  Yep, there's actually people out there who don't own a computer. How did we survive before cell phones?

[dkn1997]

unless you could get a direct contact number with the "friend" run far far away.  it's a polite way of saying they don't want to give too much info or be bothered with questions.

[69 OUR/TEA]

Most of the time it could be a scam when you see red flags such as;selling for a friend,no pictures,0 feedback,not to contact thru ebay,etc... If it is a car that you are very interested and serious about by all means get pics,and/or go look at the car in person.Back in Jan my ultimate dream Charger poped up on ebay,had all the red flags like the 0 feedback,no pics,selling for a friend,and the listing(for me) was to good to be true,69 triple black R/T SE stripe delete,one owner,PDB,A/C,PW,AM/FM,tic-toch,Cali car.One strong point of the auction was a phone # to call the owner direct,and very close to me to go and inspect to make sure it was real.The phone call was made,and after about two minutes I had a real good gut fealing it was real.Again,so close to me,the next day I was there to meet the owner and the car.The garage door opened,there it was as described,deal was made right there,auction was ended that night,picked it up that Sat.The auction had its reasons for a friend listing for him,and it was one of those rare cases that turned out great.Actually,after I had brought the car home,I later saw it was was right in dkn1997's area .If the car was across the country,I most likely would not have gone thru with it,but when you are close enough,do not leave a stone unturned if it is something you want.

[BigBlockSam]

i seem to see that more since they changed the feedback rules. now sellers can't leave neg feedback to buyers. 

[oldcarnut]

i seem to see that more since they changed the feedback rules. now sellers can't leave neg feedback to buyers. 

I didn't really understand the entire reason why they did that.  It takes care of the buyer from retaliatory feedback when the seller sold a bad deal.  But, it leaves sellers without  option to fairly rate buyers for timely payments or other problems.  I thought the feedback ratings were supposed to help out both sides.

[nakita7]

I agree, absolutely irritating.

Another personal favourite is, "Too may projects, must sell this car to fund my blah,blah". Shouldn't have bought the stupid car and kept focused on the first car dude...