http://bimmer.roadfly.org/bmw/forums/e21/forum.php?postid=3378984&page=1

All I can say is, do your homework.

Sucks for this guy...

Quite a story. I would never have done this in 1000 years, and I know nothing about cars. I do know about people, and I dont trust any of them. Sucks for him.

damn, as a fellow e30 M3 owner and overall car nut...this sucks ass. One thing to learn here, look at the big things also not just the little ones.

holy crap! i use to live near West Palm Beach, and the Wellington area is full of shady characters.

Man, that blows!

At least the guy is aware of all the mistakes and dumb things he did, too bad he had to learn that in hindsight.

I hope they put that crook away.

It must suck being stupid.

"He gets a call back. 1991 BMW M3, stolen in Worcester, Rhode Island. “Now wait a minute”, he says, “It may have been recovered too, then it’s not a stolen car anymore”.

He says Worcester,RI but in fact there isn't any town in RI that is named Worcester but there is a Worcester,MA... Trying to make RI look bad

One helluva read...but yea, I wouldn't have done it...just b/c I don't really trust anyone.

"It must suck being stupid" - Ian

LOL!!! So true, it just must!

It's just human nature: When you've taken the time and expense to travel somewhere to look at a car you've got your rose-colored glasses on to begin with, plus you're probably screwed up from the jetlag. At that point it's just too easy to say "OK, I'll fix this and that later..." when you'd have walked away in a second if it was just across town from home.

I've never once heard anyone tell a story about a positive auto buying experience from EBay, or any other online venue where they had to fly somewhere to look at it. Once you've gone that far, it's hard to walk away and fly home. Best thing to do, if you're going that far to look at a car, is to set aside a week and get a rental car. Then make sure you have a dozen or so cars scouted out in that area to look at while you're there. If one's not right, shake the sellers hand and spirit off to the next one in the rental. You're bound to find at least one you'd feel good about driving home in.

So, did he ever get any money back? The story seemed to cut off in the middle for some reason.

Here's the rest of the guys saga... Linky-link

I'd wager that the guys wife is trying to figure out a way to kill him about now, but with their savings account being 12K lighter, she probably can't afford the hit-man!

Also, whatever kind of message board program those BMW folks use is a total POS. Damn near impossible to find anything. To those who say that XOC is screwed up re: searching and such, I say: Play around with that damn board for a few minutes and you'll be praising Ian for years to come! LOL

I don't know who said it ,but "A fool and his money are soon parted" comes to mind.

On one hand I kind of feel sorry for the guy that he got taken so hard , lost the money, pissed off his wife and his going through such a hassle. But on the other hand , his obvious obsession for the vehicle blinded him from all the EXTREMELY obvious indications that it was a shitty deal almost fromt he outset. ]

Reading the whole thing and all the responces just irritated the hell out of me. I'm not really surprised at all that there are crooks in the world . I guess I'm more surprised that there are people who are so willing to hand over their hard earned cash to a complete stranger when they have so many questions and reasons not to.

One final thought about this guy's plight. If you read a few of the replies he's gotten after posting his story, every one of the dozens of replies (save one) have been along the lines of: "What can I/we do to help you get back at this scumbag who ripped you off and/or you your money back?"

If someone had posted a story like that here about getting ripped off for a shitty, stolen, chop-shopped up "X" he'd have gotten about a hundred replies along the lines of: You stupid f#*%in' moron! You deserved what you got for being the textbook example of a total idiot!"

And I think that would have been warranted! C'mon, if someone is going to let themselves be taken like that, they got what they had coming.

Not saying the shyster shouldn't be prosecuted, but if that guy was willing to do a deal like that and hand over 10K cash and not even get a signed reciept (after all that he had already discovered wrong with the car before any money was exchanged) he gave up any right for sympathy or post-screw-up assistance.

Guess those Beemer guys are more forgiving of that sort of stupidity... :rolleyes:

My opinion: that title stuff scares me to begin with. If it doesn't have the current owner's name on it, I'm walking immediately.

When I went to look at my X, it was for sale from a dealer that sells cars from his front yard. Just slightly suspicious. When he was offering it for about $3500 under dealer book value ($11,900 for a 2000 with 34k miles on the clock), I was even a little more suspicious.

I checked it out very thoroughly on the test drive, checked all the body panels, fluids, etc. and all looked great. I offered the guy exactly what he was asking for it (claimed he couldn't sell it after 8 weeks, so he was just trying to get his investment back on it).

Turned out all was very good. I ran a Carfax when I got home and verified the mileage against what was on the vehicle, verified that it was sold at auction after being a turned-in lease vehicle about 8 weeks prior, verified no prior salvage, theft or other history. Plus, the vehicle was originally registered in the same town as what a very little bit of the original dealer sticker showed on the tailgate.

He held it for me for a week without a deposit so that I could get money transferred from some investments into my checking account. When I came to pick it up, the paperwork was all in order and ready to sign. Only downside is that they did the paperwork the first day I was there. By the time I got home and got to the tag office to get the tags, I had passed the 10 day limit in our state for getting your registration on a purchased vehicle and had to pay a $10 penalty. No biggie, though, considering the deal I got.

Of course, the X isn't a vehicle that you might only find one or two prime examples of across the country, but the same caveats apply.

I found that odd... Once a stolen car is recovered the entereing agency is required to remove it. Therefore it would not return as stolen.

Damn, that's an entertaining read. Getting me prepared for Harry Potter, I guess...

It was a pagescroller...

The conclusion to that story:

http://bimmer.roadfly.org/bmw/forums/e21/forum.php?postid=3379064&page=1