Ins and Outs of buying airplanes on ebay

Fearless Tower

Fearless Tower

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Fearless Tower
I have seen a few comments here in the past from ranging from folks who would never consider buying an airplane through ebay to those who feel it is perfectly safe and legit.

I have bought alot of stuff on ebay and I have been through both gentlemen-type and broker handled aircraft sales.

For anyone who has been through the process....how are aircraft sales handled? What protections are there for the buyer/seller? How are things like pre-buy inspections handled?
 
I've bought two on ebay. Here's a photo of my picking up one of them. I paid cash.
 

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I check the listings amost daily. Caveat I've neve purchase an aircraft through ebay. Aircraft are listed in ebay Motors section and ebay considers bids made in the motors section to be "non binding" http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/non-binding-bid.html

At first I thought who the hell would buy a plane on ebay and not have the opportunity to do a pre buy. Then I learned about this policy. I suspect that a lot of sellers are unaware of the non binding bid policy because of things they wrote in their listing.

No one wants a spitting match so If I were to bid, I'd contact the seller and say "hey I'm interested in your C170 but its got to get past a pre buy" If the seller starts giving you greif he or she is probably not a person you want to be doing business with anyway.
 
JHW said:
I've bought two on ebay. Here's a photo of my picking up one of them. I paid cash.
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Jeff did you purchase any that were operational at the time of purchase? Did you have any inspections done before or after bidding?
 
AdamZ said:
No one wants a spitting match so If I were to bid, I'd contact the seller and say "hey I'm interested in your C170 but its got to get past a pre buy" If the seller starts giving you greif he or she is probably not a person you want to be doing business with anyway.
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If the seller is willing to work with the buyer, would it make sense to execute an appropriate pre-purchase/regular-purchase agreement before clicking the bid or buy-now button?
 
I would have no problem doing so, as long as you are able to do your due diligence before hand why not!
 
Real estate and vehicles (planes, boats, automobiles) are not binding bids no matter what the seller puts in the description. Communication with the seller is the best way to make the deal. I have had great success buying on ebay. I have never sold anything on ebay. Sailboats , autos and planes.


"A non-binding bid is a bid that shows a buyer's interest in purchasing an item, but it doesn't create a formal contract between the buyer and the seller.
All bids made in the Real Estate and eBay Motors vehicles categories are considered non-binding.
Remember, bids placed in any other category are a legal commitment to purchase the item. We strongly encourage you to read the other terms for more information."


http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/non-binding-bid.html#policy
 
AdamZ said:
Jeff did you purchase any that were operational at the time of purchase? Did you have any inspections done before or after bidding?
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Yes, every plane I've bought by any method, I've taken my tools and done an inspection to a greater or lesser degree before handing over any money.
 
Sleepingsquirrel said:
Real estate and vehicles (planes, boats, automobiles) are not binding bids no matter what the seller puts in the description. Communication with the seller is the best way to make the deal. I have had great success buying on ebay. I have never sold anything on ebay. Sailboats , autos and planes.
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Every car we've sold the last 5 years, we sold on ebay. You get a little less for it, but you avoid all the tire kickers and it's gone in a week. Well worth it.
 
Yes! The seller must represent the item for sale truthfully and failure to disclose the N # is helping hide information in my opinion.

Maybe he wants you to see it before you can look up damage history.
On the other hand if the seller represents the item truthfully and accurately the buyer would be remiss to fail to complete the deal. Once again communication has been the key for my successful purchases.
I have also been able to renegotiate the price if the omissions were acceptable to me upon inspection. I had already spent travel and time to pick up the item and for instance; body work was detectable by me but never mentioned in the description. I could have walked and beat negative feedback but the seller was willing to work with me on the price. Good sellers do not want negative feedback either.
 
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AggieMike88 said:
If the seller is willing to work with the buyer, would it make sense to execute an appropriate pre-purchase/regular-purchase agreement before clicking the bid or buy-now button?
Click to expand...

Thats a good question and certainly it would make me more comfortable however I can't see the seller agreeing to that as they might be signing 10 contingint purchase agreemets. I'd think it more likely that the purhcase agreement comes after bidding has ened and all it really says is that it will pass a prebuy within certain parameters. So I suppose that all Ebay really does is eliminate the dicker over the purchase price.

Jeff obviously has multiple purchases and sales this way so I'd defer to his description of how it works.
 
Fearless Tower said:
So should one be concerned if the seller doesn't respond to a question asking for the N-number of the aircraft listed?
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I'd say "perhaps" if it is the owner selling it then heck yes. If its a broker trying to sell it then I can see that they might be concerned with the buyer going behind their back to the seller and cutting them out of their commission.

However the broker should respond that they will reveal the tail number after the bidding is over as you can still obviously get out of the deal. If they just don't respond at all thats a non starter for me.
That said I"m not sure how much attempts to cut the broker out actually happen.
 
Plane and car sellers have allowed as how ebay is simply a tool to expose their products to a larger market and that most deals are completed by direct contact with the buyer after the bidding ends, usually at a price below reserve.

The result is that the airplane deals (at least those in which I have been involved) are then handled in the same sequence and under the same terms as those that result from any other form of advertising.
 
Why would the place you find the aircraft, dictate how you buy the aircraft?
 
There is a mechanism to communicate with the seller on ebay which will appear in the listing. The way a seller answers those questions on line tells me if I want to call for a more personal buyer to seller communication. Ebay also had a completed listing a buyer or seller can look at to see what the market is , i.e. C150 48 bids, sold , reserve not met, selling price. C 150 no bids, not sold, not even the tire kickers and lowballers want it.
 
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I bought my Aero Commander twin on Ebay, unseen! It wasn't planned that way, but I was the sole bidder, minimums were met and no one else came along to claim her....

After that I obviously did the pre-buy inspection and title transfers. Thankfully, she was in decent shape. I've had her for over 2 years now, she's a good egg and we've been all over the US together.
 
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I bought and sold my plane through eBay.

When I bought it, I sent the seller a message saying I was interested if the high bidder fell through. High bidder turned out to be a kid who thought financing a $17K airplane was the same as financing a $17K car, so the sale didn't go through eBay.

When I sold it, I required a non-refundable paypal deposit just large enough to cover the eBay fees in case the deal went south. It didn't.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I have seen a few comments here in the past from ranging from folks who would never consider buying an airplane through ebay to those who feel it is perfectly safe and legit.

I have bought alot of stuff on ebay and I have been through both gentlemen-type and broker handled aircraft sales.

For anyone who has been through the process....how are aircraft sales handled? What protections are there for the buyer/seller? How are things like pre-buy inspections handled?
Click to expand...

No airplanes (yet), but I've bought three cars on eBay - and been satisfied with all of them. I've sold a lot of stuff as well, and got more than I expected. The broad marketplace exposure really helps.

That said, I've had equally good luck buying and selling things on Craigslist. I've sold two cars and a riding mower - and in each case the first caller came right over and bought the vehicle. A week or so ago I sold a bicycle in about two hours! I wonder what results an airplane ad would produce?

Dave
 
View eBay just like you do Controller or Barnstormers and both parties will be happy, a pushy seller who treats it like you're buying used socks from him is hiding something. I put my plane on eBay and sold it to an eBayer but not through the auction system. Most planes won't sell through the site but they'll sell because of it. I had MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH more success selling on eBay than any of the other sites, so much so that I won't even waste my time with the others if there is a next time. I was the high bidder on a Bonanza and had every intention in the world of purchasing it, had the pre-purchase agreement in hand and escrow cash to go with it, he wouldn't touch the pre-purchase agreement and demanded I send cash to him. Called around the airport and got the 411 on the plane, seller was lying his ass off about the plane, Ruddervators corroded and 2 bad cylinders amongst other things. Cover your ass you'll be fine, bad sellers are easier to spot on eBay, they're the ones who think they have the upper hand and a sucker on the hook.

I bought my Cherokee from a deleted eBay Ad I found in the google cache, seller had pulled it to owner finance it to a local guy, I had cash. :D
 
I've bought and sold probably 5-10 cars on eBay. Like with any other means of buying and selling, you've got good buyers/sellers and bad ones. Most often, I end up making an off-eBay deal, but the buyer/seller was discovered through eBay. My current car was bought on eBay, as were my last two trucks (also sold on eBay), and another two cars, most of my motorcycles... Maybe that number is closer to 10.

With cars and trucks I can usually tell what I need to know from a good ad and a chat with the seller. I pay cash for all my vehicles and require the same, so that makes things easy.

The Aztec sale occurred off eBay, but the buyer found the plane on eBay. As with any sale, I got a few tire kickers. When I found this buyer, it all went easily.

I would worry about buying a plane off eBay.
 
Sorry, you caught a typo. Not enough coffee. :)

I wouldn't worry about it. I'd just treat it the same as any other vehicle purchase on eBay.
 
What I have discovered is some people should never buy anything used and God help the sales organization that sells them somethinng new with a warranty. Then there are regular folks with some common sense.
 
Tom-D said:
E-bay isn't the only place you find weird sellers, the week I saw this (http://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/for/3562722226.html ) on Craig's list I offered the seller a no hassle deal at 50k, at the time he was asking $52,000 for it.
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That's a nice looking plane. My wife would kill me, though. I'll stick with the club.

Oh, and I would have to get used to the panel layout. Not the standards 6 pack organization. Wouldn't take long, though.
 
You can get used to about any panel. What's more confusing for most is jumping between panel layouts that aren't standardized.

What also throws me off is having a change to a panel I'm used to. When we put the Aspen in the 310, the altimeter was placed where the VSI used to be. Threw me off visually for probably the first 20 hours.
 
the only down sides I had with selling on ebay were the number of phone calls at all hours from tire kickers not interested in buying, but who wanted to talk about planes.
 
Typically the way I see eBay deals go is that the auction itself is more of an advertisement and preliminary negotiation based on stated condition and is non binding. Inspections, unless the property is nearby, are typically held after the bid is won post which the deal is consummated, rejected or renegotiated depending on the findings.
 
Gerhardt said:
the only down sides I had with selling on ebay were the number of phone calls at all hours from tire kickers not interested in buying, but who wanted to talk about planes.
Click to expand...

This is why I never put my phone number in an ad.
 
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