is this rude ?

[Bryan Barnfellow]

Many years ago I was leaving a city for a new location and put an advt in the local paper to sell my 3-year old car. A really nice man called and said he'd like to come to look at it for his son who just got his first sales job and needed a reliable car. He came, inspected it and reviewed my maintenance log, and we agreed on the price.

I said I could deliver to him in four days. He then wrote me a check then and there to close the deal. I said that I needed to retain the ownership papers for the four days I was going to still drive it, so he should wait to pay when I delivered the car. He said, "No problem. I trust you; just bring the papers with the car and we'll do the transfer." Amazing trust! The check was written out to me with no note on it about what it was for. He didn't ask for (and I didn't think of) my writing up a quick bill of sale for him. I could have cashed it and claimed it was payment of a debt or anything else.

When my wife and I delivered the car around 11 am on a Saturday, he invited us in to have lunch with his family! It's too bad we were moving, he and his wife seemed like ideal new friend material!

BTW, this was in a very large east coast city, not the middle of Minnesota.

-BB

[Gumby]

We bought a car like that once. We went to the guy's house in another state, looked at the car, agreed on the price and I wrote him a check. We went back home and he mailed us the title when the check cleared his bank a few days later. We got the temporary plates from our home state DMV and then drove back to his house to pick up the the car and bring it home. It was about two weeks total. Yes, he could have taken the money and run, but he didn't.