He made out like a bandit!

With the purchase of our new van, we needed to sell our other car. As I had said previously, it had started giving us problems and that is why decided to purchase a new one. We went on the Kelly Blue Book website to see what the car was worth. It is a 97 Ford Escort and had about 123, 000 miles on it. There are some mechanical problems that need to be fixed, the windshield is cracked, and there are quite a number of dings on the outside. We figured it would be on the "fair" side of the spectrum. KBB said if we were selling it private party in Fair condition we could expect to get $1700 for it.

We didn't really think it was worth that much, and were willing to sell it to my younger brother for $500. On some aspects I didn't really want to sell it to family because I would hate for them to pay us and then shortly after the car really dies. So we took a bunch of pictures and Shawn threw it up on Craigslist for $1100 before he went the Priesthood Session of General Conference (each year the LDS church has a conference that is broadcast for everyone - this session is just for the men)on Saturday. When he came back 2 hours later he had received about 15 emails from people who were interested in buying the vehicle! About three people said they would come by on Sunday to look at it.

The first one showed up around 8 am. He looked at the car, test drove it, and then offered Shawn $1000. We thought that was pretty good, and honestly just wanted to get rid of it. So we agreed to the price. My sister is a notary so I drove over to her house to get the title notarized, while the man and his family went somewhere for breakfast. (They live on the other side of town so they didn't want to have to drive all the way back.) We called "J.R." and he came back and paid the remainder of the $1000. We took the money and went inside.

Shawn was doing some work on the computer, and from the office you have a clear view of our front yard. Right before J.R. left, the other two people that were interested in the car showed up. There was probably a congregation of about 10 people out there. They were all there for a short time looking at the car. The next thing we know the man we sold the car to drives off...WITHOUT THE CAR!!! We go back outside because we are curious as to what happened.

J.R. turned around and sold it to one of them for $1300! He made $300 in a matter of minutes! Can you believe it!? I thought Shawn would be upset that someone else got more money for it, but surprisingly he wasn't. He actually said that he wouldn't feel right about selling it for that much. There are just so many problems with the car that once you fix them all it would cost more that what KBB says it should in Excellent condition. The nice thing is that now it is out of our hands. If it happens to break down soon they can't come back to us...because we didn't sell it to them. This J.R. guy literally made out like a bandit!!!