One of the keys to prospering financially is not letting people take your money. I might have had a major long term financial success today!
I have been looking for a reliable, economical car for quite awhile. To be honest, it has been difficult.
More often than not, after calling on a car and deciding that it is not quite what I was looking for, the seller would then inform me that they have another one or two that they are selling. After asking a few questions, I would discover that their husband or brother or cousin works at a body shop and the car that I originally called on is actually an accident recovery.
The other half of the population are slick used car salesmen. I have never seen so many “wholesale” car dealers. LA is child’s play! And they put their advertisements in the “Cars for Sale by Owner” category on Craig’s List. The call usually goes something like this:
“Oh, its a great car! You can’t find many of these!”
After finding out the cars “few’ flaws, “I don’t think that is what I am looking for.”
“Oh, well, I’m a dealer and I have another great car just like it…”
Then there are the beautiful cars that are SOOO CHEAP! But when you e-mail them, and it is always e-mail, never a phone number, you get an e-mail back informing you that the seller is in the military and the car was just shipped from London to Iraq and he would like to do the deal through E-bay because they offer the buyer special protection…BS…BS…BS…BS
Because of that, I almost didn’t call on a 2001 Toyota Solara with 144,000 miles on it for $3,650! It seemed another of those “to good to be true” scams except that it had a local phone number. I called only to learn that it was already sold! It had only been listed for a few hours!
I asked the seller why the car was so cheap. He informed me up front that he was a “wholesale” dealer. Anyway, to make a long story short, I liked the way this man did business. He seemed quite candid and transparent. It turns out that he is just getting started “officially” with his own lot in the not so nice part of town.
I liked him so much that I called him earlier this week and told him that I was interested in developing a long term business relationship with him. If he would sell me good cars at a good price, I would buy all of my cars and my children’s cars from him. He said that he was VERY interested.
Today, I took the whole family with me and met him face to face for the first time. I asked my wife if she trusted him and she said yes so we bought a nice black 1997 VW Cabriolet convertible with a cream leather interior with 90,000 miles on it AT HIS COST! No, it’s not a line. He showed me his purchase ticket.
I think we might have found a great source for cars here!
