Car Searching, Part I

[Please ignore the erratic white hi-lighting--I can't fix it unless I re-type it all and I'm tired.]

Many of you were acquainted with Cynthia, my faithful '04 PT Chrysler PT Cruiser that I under-appreciated. I sold her right before I went to Peru for a little under Blue Book value, and now I realize that the sweet Texas State student who bought her got a serious deal. (...Though Cynthia did overheat for the first time ever literally on the way to meet that girl and hand it over. Seriously, that happened.)

I sold Cynthia partly because it didn't make sense for her to sit around for six months, and partly because I was an ungrateful wretch who didn't appreciate a car that runs well and still has all its teeth, I mean paint, and no car payments. I boo-hoo-ed about her "bad" gas mileage and that she looked a little like a hearse's pretty younger cousin. Now I realize that it's hard to find such a reliable (and attractive) car for under ten grand.

The point is, when I unexpectedly came back from Peru a full four months early, I found myself without a car. It wasn't such a big deal at first because my first few weeks were spent lying around my mom's apartment, recovering, and if I got really stir-crazy, I could "get my exercise" and walk the mile to HEB or Starbucks and back. (Not unlike how my sweet Grandma Violet used to "get her exercise" walking to get the mail at the end of our 60-foot driveway.)

However, when I very suddenly got this totally kool job as a temp, I needed more mobility. Sweet, sweet Molly carted me around with her for the first week and a half or so, and then last week I moved into my mom's apartment on Southwest Parkway. There are a lot of speedy cars and no buses on Southwest Parkway, so unless you want to get run over by a car on your way to work, you need a motor vehicle, and preferably one with doors. No bikes, no mopeds.

Thus commenced the car search. In all, it lasted just eight days, though it seemed to last epochs longer. I began my quest where any sensible girl on a tight budget looks for cars: Craigslist. Conveniently, Craigslist is also the place where all the creepiest things and people (and places) in the world can be found. I'd give you some examples here, but I don't want to spoil the surprise.

To start, Craplist turned up a few results in my price range, though unfortunately just a little below my "taste range" as we'll refer to it. Now, I'm not a snob, but a girl has got to have some standards. The idea of driving a jalopy around for the latter part of my 24th year sounds really fun and romantic, but the romanticism is overshadowed by my aversion to the smell of cigarettes and a complete lack of desire to break down on the side of I-35.

Just as I am not a snob, I am also not an idiot, so I fully realized I wasn't going to get anything fancy and awesome (like an '07 Prius or anything) on my budget. However, I was looking to spend not too much less than what I got for my PT and expected to get something pretty comparable. Instead, here is what I found--

First, there was the "bagged and rat rod 68 belair wagon" for $4500 in killeen. Some of its best features included (note, the following is a direct quote from the ad):

-Has rust ....rat rod....

-no interior panels or carpet

-Bagged with nitrogen

-I drive my kids around in it

-has everything still 1968 .....

-All numbers matching car

-numbers matching motor/tranny

And if you wanna know what it looks like with night-vision goggles, those pictures are included, too. So you can know how it'll look for police and your wife's P.I.

The guy was "asking $ 4500 obo or $3000 and trade what u got" but "No calls after 9:30 pm I got kids."

Hmmm, tempting...But let's make sure we've explored all our options.

Like the "02 Jett" in casterville, wherever that is. The post informed me, "i have an 2002 jet it needs new injekters ever thaing is good shap". [I refuse to put the period inside of that quotation mark and let you think this person uses punctuation.] I was concerned about buying a car (or aircraft?) from someone that can't spell, so I moved right along. I also am not interested in injekters, so that'd be wasteful.

There was this one that had an A/C that is "antactica cold," which I'm assuming is code for "works well." One point for creativity, minus one for poor spelling.

Then I found a Toyota Corolla that is "super neconomic on gas" and has a "sun ruff." Again, the spelling!!

Or what about the Honda Accord with "18800000 miles"? I know that number's a little confusing because the person neglected to use commas, so I'll write it out for you, like a check. That's eighteen million, eight-hundred thousand miles. Not a good salesman or good with numbers.

Ooh, or what about this true gem: 2000 Nissan Maxima with "blown head gaskets " that "over heats after about 15 miles" and has no title, allegedly because it was "sent to the wrong address." [And of course by that he means "because the car is stolen."]

I particularly liked the 1994 white Ford Bronco. Good for getting to work and for re-enacting famous police chases.

OR the real, live fire truck!! (Well, real, but not so much live.) I really wish I owned an elementary school so I could buy it for all the kiddies to play and romp around in all day learning and stuff. (That makes me sound like a creep.) Anyways, here's the ad:

1985 Ford fire truck
Run,s and drive good
Clear title
Will do some trading what do u have?
$2600
33k
563-****
Last day befor take to scrap yard

Friends, you need to stop what you're doing and start scrap yard scrounging for this dream cruiser.

Okay, Round 1 rejects out of the way, let's move on to those whose owners were crafty enough to entice me into contacting them.

One of the first people I called, their voicemail message was what I think was a recording of a bird twittering (like making song, not posting its musings online). No human voice--just a bird, probably locked up in someone's kitchen in a cage filled with its own feces, making unintelligible bird sounds. I also imagine that the kitchen its cage is in is filled with stacks of newspapers, empty bean cans, and a rotten pumpkin. Against my better judgment, I left a voicemail with my name and phone number. It's probably best I didn't receive a call-back.

There were a few other looney-tunes like that, and then there was The Scammer--Gmail name: "Brock Ethan", though she alleges her name is "Nataly Brock." "Brock Ethan"/"Nataly" was offering an '07 Jeep Grand Cherokee for $3,500 in her ad on Crocklist. I emailed the address listed on the ad* to ask if price listed was for a down payment or the entire asking price. Now, this was a no-win situation because if it was the down payment, I certainly couldn't afford the rest, and if it was the entire asking price, it was surely a scam, but I wasn't thinking that clearly at the time.

Ethan/Nataly replied to my email that the price was $3,500 in full, not a down payment. She also told me in her email this tragic story about her son, "only 24," who had died in a car accident with his fiance a few months ago, and now her son's car, the Grand Cherokee, just reminds her and her husband of their son, so they just want to get rid of it. I felt really badly for this lady, obviously, and her story was really tuggin' at my heartstrings. But then in her email she started talking about "shipping prices" and "eBay's Buyer Protection Program." Since the ad was posted in Austin's Creeplist, I had assumed this lady was local. Per Crazylist's advice, I only deal locally, and in my response I offered her my condolences and expressed my hesitations about buying a car that needs to be shipped to me. I offered to speak by phone to clear up any confusion.

In her response "Nataly Brock" started getting very insistent that this deal was going to happen, making a lot of assumptions (e.g. "Once you receive the car and decide to keep it...") and completely ignoring my request to speak by phone. She told me she would ship it to me from Las Vegas, where she lives, and that I would send her the money through eBay. (eBay doesn't act as a third-party in transactions, by the way.) At that point, I emailed back telling her I wasn't interested and best of luck. On the complete off-chance this person was, in fact, a grieving mother and not a scruple-less criminal, I didn't want to be rude.

The next day, I did a few Google searches and confirmed that this set up follows a pretty standard template for ripping people off--the scanned flier for an ad so their name can't be searched; the claims about the shipping facility (that the shipping company explicitly warns about on their website); the claims about eBay (that eBay also warns about on their website), etc., etc. I felt a bit of indignation, to say the least, that someone was trying to steal my money, and lying about losing a child to do it. How gross?!

Later that afternoon, I noticed that "Brock Ethan"("Nataly Brock") was available for chat on my Google Chat. I decided to be really clever and try to catch "Nataly Brock" in "her" lie. If the Feds weren't going to take care of it, I was! [If an internet scam is for anything less than $5,000 the government won't investigate. FYI.]

What follows is my actual confrontation/investigation of the yucky troll:

4:20 PM

me: Have you found a buyer for your car?

4:21 PM ethan: I am working on that

why?

4:22 PM me: You are in Las Vegas, correct?

4:25 PM ethan: yep

4:26 PM me: My family lives in Las Vegas. Do you think we could set up a time for them to come take a look at the car?

I'm surprised you've had trouble selling it since it's in great condition and priced so far below market value.

4:29 PM ethan: The shipping company will not allow any viewers to go at their whorehouse to inspect the car because their reply it was "We are not a showroom"
and I'm truly understand them because I have 20 interested persons who want's to go at their whorehouse and you can imagine that this in not possible. Don't worry you will have it for 7 days and you can do any mechanical test you want with it.

4:30 PM me: whorehouse?

ethan: at their address

4:33 PM me: what is a whorehouse?

4:37 PM ethan: warehouse I mean..sorry :D

4:40 PM me: Yeah, I get warehouse and whorehouse confused all the time, too.

So if you were unsure about whether or not this is a scam, notice that their grammar screams "English is not my first language" and more importantly, that they confused warehouse with whorehouse.

I then tried to see if I could get them to give themselves away by not knowing something about Las Vegas.

4:42 PM

me: so where in Las Vegas do you and your husband live?

4:43 PM ethan: 610 S 10th St

4:47 PM me: Oh, that's a nice area. Do you have grass or zero-scaping?

Notice it took me a full four minutes to figure out what to do with that information, and that's the tricky question I came up with. My detective skills obviously need some work.

(The idea, by the way, was to see if she could correctly identify the type of landscaping Google Maps' street view shows for the house. She got it right. Lucky guess--she only had two options.)

Soon after that, Nataly/Ethan told me it had to go. It was getting tired of my games.

About fifteen minutes later Nataly/Ethan was available for chat again and I decided to continue my pursuit.

5:13 PM me: I'm sorry, if you're still there I'd like to ask a few more questions about the car.

I'm very interested.

5:13 PM ethan: what?

You can tell it's annoyed. I'm winning! Then I decided to just go for it and confront her. Kind of. And then hope she cracks. (It always works on Law and Order...)

5:16 PM me: Okay.

What shipping company are you using?

5:16 PM ethan: DAS

5:17 PM I don't want to offend you but I will accept only if you have the money ready..and I am still using ebay as a third part

me: That doesn't offend me!

5:18 PM How have you not been able to sell it in LV? It's priced 10k below value.

5:19 PM ethan: I haven't time to make this deal in person so maybe that's why

I left it on the ebay custody and that;s it

me: That doesn't make sense. It's a much bigger hassle to deal with shipping and ebay and people across states.

5:20 PM I am looking at the DAS website and they say that they don't hold unsold vehicles in their whorehouses.

ethan: yes

me: And it also says that eBay doesn't accept funds or act as a third party in a transaction.

5:21 PM That's weird.

You're telling me the opposite.

ethan: but i have 2 potential buyers and I am waiting for ebay to confirm that one of them made the payment..i hope that it will happens soon :)

Please note the creepy happy face. I know Ethan/Nataly knows that I know and they are taunting me that they're about to scam someone and I can't do anything about it. It's like that one scene in Silence of the Lambs, but a little less creepy/scary. Then this happens--

5:22 PM ethan: buyer protection program

see bellow the video

5:22 PM ht**//pastehtml.com/***wdcsvi.html

me: Hm.

Is that a virus?

ethan: :))

You know it is a virus. [Note, that's not the actual link.]

And then, me out of ideas and Ethan/Nataly out of patience, it ended like this:

5:24 PM ethan: well you are to suspicious ...in this way we can not make business

me: you're right, we can't make business.

because you 'do' business.

where did you say you're from?

5:24 PM ethan: it doesn't matter, never mind ..i have to go

me: Okay. Just know that I know.

;)

And then I blocked "Brock Ethan" on Gmail.

And thus concludes Part I of Car Searching.

Will Audrey get ripped off? Will she find the car of her dreams? Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of this epic tale in Car Searching: Part II, coming to this very blog as soon as Audrey applies to a few more jobs.

xo and thanks for reading,

audrey