I'd agree, a lot of this is common sense or thinking things out, not being in any kind of hurry, knowing what you want, the condition it needs to be in and how to handle the transaction safely.
And although the situation I will describe, breaks the rules, sometimes an exception can be made or is ok, just don't believe every scenario will turn out fine if repeated.
On one of the forums, ACMOC I believe, was an old WWII era D7 advertised, low hour surplus tractor, but 1200 miles west of here in Illinois. My interest in it was for many reasons, one was nostalgia, as we had one on the farm growing up, + I used to have a full time job running heavy equipment etc.
Well I had some photos sent, all looked as stated, there were some tell tale signs as well as the seller coming across like a very honest person, I sent 2K to hold it, personal check too. I then checked into trucking and so on, sent the remainder, then arranged trucking literally by a phone call, they went and picked up, then delivered this tractor to my house on a phone call, 1200 miles overwidth. I paid them with a personal check and included a $100 bonus, none of us knew each other, bought sight unseen.
Overall, the tractor was a low hour, very nice undercarriage, all original, no wear on the pedals, hour meter intact, working and original, tracks measured out with the gauge to be almost new, grousers were down a little. All in all I was fine with it, needs a bunch of little things, service work and so on, however about 15 hours onto the meter later the clutch went out, and that was due to it sitting a long long time, the pilot bearing had not been greased, you could see the age on everything in there. Ok fine, hey I bought it sight unseen but I bought it because of the overall condition and what it could be with some work.
You know the seller emailed me some time back, very nice person I thought, was wondering how the D7 was etc, and I told him what happened and I never heard back from him, I thought maybe he may have been embarrassed or something given what happened, but I certainly placed no blame, its old, that bearing was overlooked for a long time, longer than he owned it, I am the 3rd owner, Army had it til 1970, and it was a '45 model. So if you are reading, LOL, everything is cool !!!
I think the point is that although I broke the rules, everyone was honest, got paid their due and it worked out fine, you just wish everyone was as honest, I mean really, a total stranger calls you and says pick up this 15 ton tractor for me, I'll pay you when it arrives, who in heck is going to do that, no contract, just a verbal, I thought that was just unheard of today, but a true story. I was lucky he was able to do the job, as the commercial outfits were 3x the cost.
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