How to Safely Buy a Scooter on eBay or CL

[danno711]

This article is specifically about Burgmans, but, its ideas will probably work for others scooters as well.....

Comments?

How to Safely Buy a Suzuki Burgman Scooter on eBay

I’ve heard the horror stories and read some comments about people getting burned when buying a scooter or motorcycle on eBay so I thought I’d offer up some tips on how I have been able to purchase motorcycles, essentially risk free, on eBay.

Now eBay can be a magical place to find deals and items at great prices. And you can regularly find Suzuki Burgman scooters for sale on eBay. Although I’ve noticed lately that the number of Burgman scooters for sale is smaller than it used to be. Now that’s understandable. After all, who would want to sell one if they didn’t have to?

As far as I’m concerned the biggest concerns about buying a Suzuki Burgman scooter on eBay are:

Mechanical & Cosmetic Condition As Described
A Very Safe and Fair Exchange of Cash and Scooter
Delivery

All of these issues can be easily overcome and I suggest that you never purchase a Burgman scooter on eBay without following the advice below. let’s call it the Steve Rhode BurgmanRiders.com plan. I like the way that sounds! :-)

This is the process that I use and it would be very hard to get royally screwed if you adopt this approach. With a good insurance policy you exchange money for protection. And when buying a scooter or motorcycle on eBay you can essentially do the same thing. If you have found a Burgman scooter that you want to purchase and you have looked it over online and it seems like the one for you then follow these two steps.

Find the Nearest Suzuki Dealer – Call the service shop and ask to speak to the service manager. Explain to them that you are purchasing a Burgman scooter long distance and you would like to pay them to look the scooter over and give you a report on its condition. Here is the most important part, ask the service manager to agree to not release the scooter without your permission and that you will make arrangements for it to be picked up by a transport company from them following the completion of the sale. You can find the nearest Suzuki dealer to the seller, online.
Contact the Seller Before the End of the Sale – Any reasonable seller will be willing to allow you to have the scooter looked over by the dealer service shop following your winning bid. Just explain that since you are long distance you want to make sure that the scooter is in good shape and as listed before you transfer the funds. If everything is as stated in the auction, the seller can deliver the title to the dealer for them to hold until you transfer the money to the seller. This will ease the mind of the seller.

Your insurance premium here is that you will need to pay the dealer for their assistance in making this safe transaction. There is a cost to do this but it is usually less than $150 more than the mechanical review by the dealer service shop.

If everything looks good and the dealer gives you a clean bill of health you can ask the seller to deliver the title to the dealer and once the dealer confirms they have the title, ask them to fax it to you so you can make sure the title is in order for a smooth transfer to you. Next, transfer the money to the seller, I prefer to do this via a wire transfer for one primary reason. A wire transfer is a same day transfer of funds from your bank to the bank of the seller. The funds are guaranteed and good on arrival. This is a bonus inducement for you to offer to the seller to ask them to participate with this process.

I don’t like to ship the title with the scooter or motorcycle so I ask the dealer to express mail me the title separately from the scooter. The last thing I want is a stranger with both the scooter and title in their hands. This might be a bit of overkill here but this is why this process is about as safe as it can be for a long distance purchase.

There are extra costs for this approach to safely buying a motorcycle or scooter long distance. Extra costs will be:

Service visit to look scooter over.
Dealer service to handle safe transfer.
Cost of wire transfer of funds.
Cost to express mail title.

But like I said, all of this is your insurance to protect you from getting burned by a seller you don’t know, taking your money and running. Sadly it has happened before and it will happen again.

The last step of this process is to make arrangements for either yourself or a professional motorcycle transfer company to pick up the scooter from the dealer and deliver it to you. Again there is a charge for this service but it can be cheaper than flying across country to ride an unfamiliar scooter home. Also, professional transporters are bonded and insured to protect you and the scooter in transit.

Here are a few places that advertise motorcycle shipping online that you might want to look at.

Freight Center
Federal Motorcycle Transport
Haul Bikes

I’ve used Federal a couple of times and they always did a very prompt and professional job. The motorcycle was picked up and arrived as promised and I could track it on its journey as well. Now that doesn’t mean that the others don’t look interesting as well. Use who you want to. It looks like both Haul Bikes and Federal charge about the same rate to ship a scooter across country.

To give you an approximate idea of what it would cost to ship your scooter cross country, it looks like around $620 is the average charge.

Secret: If you want to save some money, you can ask for a custom shipping quote from the eBay item page for the specific scooter. Federal has a relationship with eBay for motorcycle and scooter shipping and you’ll get a cheaper price asking for a quote through the scooter auction page on eBay.

Just click on the shipping tab on the scooter auction page on eBay and press the “Get Custom Quotes” button, as shown below.

burgmanriders.com/burgman-rider-columns/steve-rhode/798/how-to-safely-buy-a-suzuki-burgman-scooter-on-ebay/

[snugglebunny]

idk how good this sounds
might be great
but im always told
to use a credit card to purchase items like this.
that way your credit card company has the right to refund
money, in case it turns into a bad sell.
whereas, if you use a wire transfer,
your money is gone. no matter what.

idk

[skuttadawg]

Best way would be to buy a used scooter in person with a test ride as on Ebay one may look good but be a lemon or abused . CL or other ads may provide you with a lead . Try here www.cycletrader.com/ or any local dealer in town

[Sl4ck3r]

the only thing I can maybe add to this is when buying on CL I would never ever go to look at an item alone especially big ticket items such as scooter. Around here there have been such terrible stories involving CL sales that I don't even bother with CL anymore. People are getting braver and the old rule of meeting at a public place ie: gas station, Wal-mart etc is no longer valid as they are even pulling guns on people in those places and robbing them for their money. Sellers aren't even safe as the potential buyer aka thief will rob you for your Iphone/ IPad etc. When looking to purchase a scooter from CL I'd take a friend along and leave the money in the car and maybe even not take the money and if everything checks out tell the seller you will go to the ATM and be back.

[skuttadawg]

Yes on the news a man got robbed meeting someone on CL . If you have a CWP bring your noise maker