Hello –
If you are selling something as a private party with a fairly high value like a boat, car, truck, motorcycle, camper, etc what would be your preferred method of payment? Cash? If so how do you know it’s not counterfeit? Cashier’s check? How do you know it’s real? Personal Check? Other ideas? What do most people prefer or what is the safest as a seller. Cash seems obvious but is there an easy way to tell if it’s real?
Chad
Cashier check and call the bank it’s written by to confirm its a good check. Only takes a few minutes for alot of peace of mind.
Money transer to my account, from their bank. 
Or a service such as PayPal 
i’ve gone with the buyer to their bank for cash or cashiers check.
Cash – I like to heft of $10,000 in crisp $100 bills.
If the guy can’t give me cash – I just have them get a cashiers check – made out to me.
I prefer it come from a bigger bank – like Wells Fargo or US Bank.
Dog 
As sad as it is, counterfeiting has hit every venue of payment means and the risk is there. Counterfeit money is a site with some of the obvious signs of fake money. I like bank checks and have not had an issue with them.
Hold it up to the light. Counterfeit bills will have no hidden water mark
Look for a security thread (a plastic strip) running from top to bottom. Beginning in 1990, an embedded (not printed) security thread was added to all bills except the $1 and $2 bills. If you hold the bill up to the light you easily see the strip and printing on it. The printing will say “USA” followed by the denomination of the bill, which is spelled out for $5, $10, and $20 bills but presented in numerals on the $50 and $100 bills. These threads are placed in different places on each denomination to prevent lower-denomination bills being bleached and reprinted as higher denominations. Compare a genuine bill of the same denomination to make sure the position of the thread is correct. If it is not, the bill is not genuine.
Hold the bill up to a light to check for a watermark. A watermark bearing the image of the person whose portrait is on the bill can be found on all $10, $20, $50, and $100 bills series 1996 and later, and on $5 bills series 1999 and later. The watermark is embedded in the paper to the right of the portrait, and it can be seen from both sides of the bill.
Tilt the bill to examine the color-shifting ink. Color-shifting ink (ink that appears to change color when the bill is tilted) can be found on 100, 50 and 20 dollar bills series 1996 and later, and on 10 dollar bills series 1999 and later; $5 and lower bills do not yet have this feature. The color originally appeared to change from green to black, but it goes from copper to green in recent redesigns of the bills.
Use a magnifying glass to examine micro-printing. Beginning in 1990, very tiny printing was added to certain places (which have periodically been changed since then) on $5 and higher denomination bills. The exact location of the micro-printing is not generally an issue. Rather, counterfeits will often have either no micro-printing or very blurred micro-printing. On a genuine bill, the micro-printing will be crisp and clear.
The $5 bill has “USA FIVE” written on the thread, the $10 bill has “USA TEN” written on the thread; the $20 bill has “USA TWENTY” written on the security thread; the $50 bill has “USA 50” written on the thread; and the $100 bill has the words “USA 100” written on the security thread. Micro-printing can be found around the portrait as well as on the security threads.
Hold the bill up to a black light. If authentic, the security thread in the bills will glow: $5 bill glows blue; the $10 bill glows orange, the $20 bill glows green, the $50 bill glows yellow and the $100 bill glows pink.
Run your finger nail over the portrait’s vest of the bill. You should feel distinctive ridges, printers cannot reproduce this.
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Cashier check and call the bank it’s written by to confirm its a good check. Only takes a few minutes for alot of peace of mind.
X2
Make sure the phone number you are calling matches the banks website/phone book.
livestock
Whatever method you get go to the bank with the purchaser to verify funds and then hand over the purchased item.
Whatever you do be aware of buyers feelings on the matter. If you push an honest sincere man too far he’s walking from the sale. For instance if I paid you several thousand for something and you started holding every bill up to the light you just lost a sale. But thats just me…
Have the other party meet you at your bank with the cashiers check in hand. Cash it right in front of him/her, if it checks out then finish the deal.
Most counterfeit bills will have the same serial number on all the bills
Cash, but that can be scary. If it’s during the week, go to the bank with them,, with YOUR title in hand.. as money is counted or cashed, sign the title away.. THEN, probly best to go to the DMV if you’re the buyer.. That’s what I intend on doing going forward. It’s good for both the buyer and the seller if neither has anything to hide
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THEN, probly best to go to the DMV if you’re the buyer..
Insist on the buyer going to the DMV with you to transfer the title. Nothing sucks more than getting a court summons because the person who bought your vehicle from you a year ago neglected to transfer the title and “forgot” to pay a bunch of parking tickets they collected.
Then you have to drive to downtown St Paul, fight to find a parking spot in that confounded mess, and wait in line for 8 hours to certify the transfer all so that you don’t have a warrant for unpaid tickets or not appearing in court.
That’s a mistake I won’t make twice.
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Hello –
If you are selling something as a private party with a fairly high value like a boat, car, truck, motorcycle, camper, etc what would be your preferred method of payment? Cash? If so how do you know it’s not counterfeit? Cashier’s check? How do you know it’s real? Personal Check? Other ideas? What do most people prefer or what is the safest as a seller. Cash seems obvious but is there an easy way to tell if it’s real?
Chad
Cash is obviously the easiest, but the seller has to be reasonable when the sale price climbs above $10,000. At some banks it can be a real PITA to get large amounts of cash without giving them notice. I had to wait for a manager’s signature at my credit union to get $7000 once.
Cashier’s check would be next. The thing about a cashier’s check is that you can call the bank it’s drawn on to validate that it’s good before the seller leaves with the item.
Get complete seller information. I always ask for a driver’s license and I write down all the info including the number. If the buyer gets funny or refuses to give you the info, look out. Naturally, the name on the license better match the name of who you thought you were talking to. If “Steve” called to ask about the boat for sale and then looks at it and makes an offer, then his driver’s license had better not say Ricardo when I go to write out the bill of sale.
Also keep in mind with anything that’s titled or licensed like a car, camper, boat, etc you have some additional leverage. If the payment bounces, you can report it as stolen.
As someone else said, conduct all transfers in person at the DMV.
Grouse
Do any of you pride yourself on the ability to read other people? Do you always feel the need to be so skeptical?
I’m not young and I’ve never been burned. In some cases I’m more careful than others but I have always been able to distinguish an honest person from someone that might not be.
cashiers check way to go, and actually go to their bank while they get it, that way you know for sure, no counterfeit cash to worry about and you watch the banker actually print it…. even if the cashiers check is real and you call the bank and they say its good, guess what, that guy can call the bank back and put a stop payment on it because he “lost” it
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Do any of you pride yourself on the ability to read other people? Do you always feel the need to be so skeptical?
I’m not young and I’ve never been burned. In some cases I’m more careful than others but I have always been able to distinguish an honest person from someone that might not be.
There’s honest people, there’s shady people, and then there’s all-out conmen. The first two are easy to read. The all-out conmen are pros as appearing to be honest people. They don’t get to be professional conmen by appearing shady and they’re the ones you have to look out for. Sad, but true.
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Money transer to my account, from their bank.
Do not use a transfer. These take days to clear and can be reversed by the other bank. Use a money wire. Make sure the money is coming by wire not transfer.
Paypal protects the buyer much more than the seller but I don’t have a lot of experience with big money transactions using them.
To the topic of going to the DMV. If it has a title there is a top portion that you can fill out from the buyers drivers license. Mail that in to prove the sale. Also you can go on the MN DMV’s website and record the sale.
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Do any of you pride yourself on the ability to read other people? Do you always feel the need to be so skeptical?
I’m not young and I’ve never been burned. In some cases I’m more careful than others but I have always been able to distinguish an honest person from someone that might not be.
There’s honest people, there’s shady people, and then there’s all-out conmen. The first two are easy to read. The all-out conmen are pros as appearing to be honest people. They don’t get to be professional conmen by appearing shady and they’re the ones you have to look out for. Sad, but true.
Totally true, the sad fact of the matter is that professional scammers make their living by conning people who think that they can spot a fraud.
Also, the problem is that I doubt a professional scammer is going to bother trying to scam somebody out of a beat up $500 duck boat. It’s the big ticket items that are going to bring them out of the woodwork.
Grouse
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