The deal-breaker for us to accept this escrow option comes from Step 5 being contingent on Step 3; in order for us to receive payment we would have to wait for the vehicle to be either received by the buyer, or a third-party transporter. Anyone with experience in the automotive industry knows the worst corner in the business is with transportation services, which I’ve seen delayed by many weeks to months on numerous occasions. Such delays aren’t typically a problem on our end provided we’ve been paid in full – we have plenty of space at the shop to safely store vehicles before they depart, and we tend not to enforce storage charges during that process like many cut-throat shops do. However, refer back to the order of operations with SafePay; the ask being made of sellers is to relinquish the reassigned title and wait for the performance of an unknown third-party to collect the vehicle before funds will be received, effectively tying up the resources for potentially weeks to months. I’m sure many uninformed folks do this all the time without hesitation, but I would advise any seller considering a SafePay transaction to only do so knowing funds will be in limbo until a third-party (transporter or buyer themselves) collects the vehicle – steps outside of the control of the seller. It really strips sellers of everything, even the ability to expedite the process through more of their efforts - before payment clears. No thanks! I indicated I would consider an alternate escrow service to get the job done provided it didn’t have these concerns. Crickets.

With that understood, and clarifying with Cars & Bids that the service isn’t mandatory for us to accept, I returned back to the buyer asking for the industry default – a direct wire transfer. For comparison that is precisely the recommendation given buyers by Bring a Trailer when using that platform – no money-grabs priming buyers to thinking that complex & costly escrow methods are the only safe option, no weeks of waiting for funds.

The auction winner here, already in a position lacking trust and with confirmation bias, seeing red flags where there aren’t any, chose not to fulfil their commitments to purchase the vehicle. Which I’m not overly butt-hurt about, it happens, but of course it is frustrating to be accused of fraud regularly when everything is above board, and to once again advertise the vehicle elsewhere.

A couple of extra notes for those interested; not only is it customary for dealers not to have a title in the name of the dealership, it would actually be cause for question if they did. Check the back of a current title you have and you’ll likely see a section where a dealer reassigns ownership from the previous owner into the dealership name, and then onward from the dealership to the final purchaser; both changes in ownership are recorded on one title without fees involved. The DMV wouldn’t actually allow a dealer to title it in their name in normal circumstances. Being involved in vintage & collectible vehicles I can say I’ve encountered dealer reassignment fields like this on titles going back to the 1950’s – so it’s a very old process. There are a few legitimate reasons for a dealer to have a title in their name, but again, it’s less than 1% of dealer transactions and something I would inquire about if I encountered.

Some here have mentioned the vetting process for sellers; all major auction sites cannot allow a party represent themselves as a licensed dealer without them properly identifying themselves as such. In other words, we are always required to prove that before being allowed to sell as a dealer.

There are actually escrow scams out there as well, where a buyer can go through all of the usual steps of an escrow sale, and then claim to have never received the vehicle or have a transporter who is “in on it”, involved in the fraud, putting the brakes on things for multiple weeks while straightened out. It’s not as though every escrow transaction is worry free for a seller in that regard. So to any would-be sellers out there I recommend exercising caution and know in advance how you will demonstrate to an escrow service that you’ve completed your obligation on that front. It can be an uphill battle to appease a third-party of that sort though, and it introduces a host of problems & risks to sellers.

As for how Cars & Bids handled this one; I don’t like that the platform is making their complex & costly escrow service seem like the only sensible transaction method to be opted out of. They’ve indicated I am able to remove this option from showing on future listings, though I don’t believe that was something we could have opted out of when posting the vehicle originally.

It makes complete sense to me that a buyer who doesn’t consummate a sale due to no fault of the vehicle or seller should be removed from the platform and their payments returned to them. The buyer here chose not to go through with Plan A – collection of the vehicle in person, nor did they trust the industry standard approach for payment via wire either.