ebay vehicles: bank liens?

Probably a stupid question, but here goes.

One recent ebay auction had the following terms: buyer pays seller; seller uses funds to satisfy lien; bank releases title to seller, who then transfers title to buyer.

Doesn't the winning bidder run the risk of never receiving title? (Duh!) Once the seller has cash in hand, what is their motivation to see the title transfer through?

Now, admittedly ebay has some kind of "buyer protection" scheme for "passenger vehicles", but the latter term does not extend to motorcycles, for example.

(Confused.)

I wouldn't buy a car with terms like that. Since I've bought and sold cars with bank liens before, let me suggest a better way to go about it. Buyer and seller drive to bank which holds lien on car, Buyer pays bank, bank gives balance beyond loan amount to seller, and buyer gets title.

That's the only way I'd go about it. Then again, I probably wouldn't buy a car off of ebay anyway.

I wouldn't do it that way either! You could look into using an escrow service for that scenario, but I'd still be nervous! :shaking:

I've always done it the way Iain described; no problems.

So what happens if the car goes for less than the bank Lien?

I'd also like something in writing from the bank & former owner denoting the nature of the transaction for future reference. :wink:

I did that on the POS since the title was still in the name of the Leasing Company and not the folks who handed me the keys. It’s nice to have a paper trail backing the entire transaction. Just in case you need to show it to the Judge!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/285000..._wapher150.jpg

Everything y'all have said is in agreement with my initial, gut instinct. I just wasn't sure if there was some unspoken honor system along the same lines that all the other piddly ebay cra... er, stuff, trades under.