Cheap S2 on ebay
Community Organizer
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 7,961
Likes: 12
From: Oregon City, OR
Originally Posted by X4DLuvOfSpeedX,Nov 29 2008, 09:46 PM
Yeah, great deal. Too bad it's probably a scam.
It has all the scam ingredients:
- Generic options copied off some Honda brochure.
- Little or no information specific to the car.
- Bad English.
- Price way below market.
- Description doesn't match the item.
- And finally, "shipping included" and "I have recently moved". Sounds like it's leading to the usual scam where the seller is in the UK or something but the car is in a storage in the US. You can't go see the car but he'll be happy to ship it to you once you pay him. Sure.
The one thing missing is the hotmail or other generic email address where you're supposed to contact the seller because his ebay email is "full" (ie: hacked). But it still looks fishy to me.
Then again, the maybe the guy is legit and simply FAILS as a salesman.
It has all the scam ingredients:
- Generic options copied off some Honda brochure.
- Little or no information specific to the car.
- Bad English.
- Price way below market.
- Description doesn't match the item.
- And finally, "shipping included" and "I have recently moved". Sounds like it's leading to the usual scam where the seller is in the UK or something but the car is in a storage in the US. You can't go see the car but he'll be happy to ship it to you once you pay him. Sure.
The one thing missing is the hotmail or other generic email address where you're supposed to contact the seller because his ebay email is "full" (ie: hacked). But it still looks fishy to me.
Then again, the maybe the guy is legit and simply FAILS as a salesman.
Classic scam.
PLUS, if I'm not mistaken, Ebay does NOT have a "Vehicle Purchase Protection" insurance AT ALL.
They're trying to rip someone off, plain and simple.
Economic crisis or not, a car with an MSRP of mid 20s will not be selling for 12k unless it's a salvage and still needs work (i.e. not the actual pics of the car).
Registered User
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 258
Likes: 0
From: SoCal
That doom and gloom perspective is correct, but not for those who have money. Those who have money can wait indefinitely to make a sale. The old relation goes, if you have a million dollars and lose 50K dollars, you still have effectively a million dollars. But if you have 60K dollars and lose 50K dollars, you may be wondering where you going to get the money for your next toy.
Registered User
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 5,252
Likes: 1
From: Hong Kong
Originally Posted by RFCR,Nov 30 2008, 01:37 AM
That doom and gloom perspective is correct, but not for those who have money. Those who have money can wait indefinitely to make a sale. The old relation goes, if you have a million dollars and lose 50K dollars, you still have effectively a million dollars. But if you have 60K dollars and lose 50K dollars, you may be wondering where you going to get the money for your next toy.
Anyways, ya, it depends on how much the car is worth relative to one's total wealth. But unfortunately, most people spend a large portion of their money into cars
Registered User
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 16
Likes: 0
Originally Posted by Gienek,Nov 29 2008, 10:01 PM
I just ran a car check on that car. I had frame damage. Its a rebuild title. Looks like a scam too
Registered User
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 36
Likes: 0
Originally Posted by Ks320,Nov 29 2008, 09:46 PM
Honestly ... that sounds about right even if the car is perfectly normal. As I've said before, we REALLY are in an economic crisis, or about to enter one.
A lot of people are liquidating cars like there is no tomorrow. People are throwing cars out ... in where I live, there is an army of 599 F430s, 911 turbos, etc all waiting for buyers. GTRs are going for 20% below MSRP new. So are R8s. So those who thought they looked cool 2 months ago by paying some 10% premium on an R8 or GTR may not look so cool anymore.
People can pick up 4-year old E-classes at 20 to 25% of their original prices. That is some fierce depreciation if you ask me. Before all these things blew up, they were taking a 4-year depreciation to only down to 45% to 50%-ish.
In UK, some dealers are already refusing to buy second hand cars, unless you are trading in for another car. Their lots are simply filled with second hand cars.
One really needs to adjust his expectation of car prices nowadays. Perhaps it hasn't hit the entire America YET. But sooner or later it will. With home prices are dropping the way they are now, car prices simply cannot hold up. Think about it when people need to liquidate and get more cash, what would they do? The first thing is to sell the car, since it's most liquid and it is a substantial part of most American's wealth.
With that said, 60% depreciation on a soon-to-be 3-year old car isn't entirely off scale. Remember, we are already in December, and 2009 is just around the corner. So your car is another year older already. Also, dealers are stuffed with cars in the lot. They would be dying to let go of these cars at ridiculous prices very soon -- if not already the case. If I were to buy a new S2000 now, I would be bidding it at 25K USD with a dealer. I would expect to get a call from the salesperson pretty soon asking me if I'm still interested.
Yes, it's hard to believe these prices, but 2 months from now, if you are selling a car, you would be saying "Wow ... that dude on eBay was so lucky, he managed to find a bid @ XX,XXX for that car." Just look at how much wealth has evaporated in the last few months. Just as an illustration, the world has lost 20 trillion dollars in all the stock markets -- they all were worth approximately 50 trillion at the peak. So what happens with the wealth is gone? People pay less for cars, and that's assuming that they actually have the $$ to do it ...
Anyways, I've rambled on for too long, but I really say that this is a shxt hole. In case you are buying a car, adjust your bid to really low. Same goes if you are trying to sell your car, adjust your expectation a lot lower ...
Whether or not that specific car is fine, I don't know.
A lot of people are liquidating cars like there is no tomorrow. People are throwing cars out ... in where I live, there is an army of 599 F430s, 911 turbos, etc all waiting for buyers. GTRs are going for 20% below MSRP new. So are R8s. So those who thought they looked cool 2 months ago by paying some 10% premium on an R8 or GTR may not look so cool anymore.
People can pick up 4-year old E-classes at 20 to 25% of their original prices. That is some fierce depreciation if you ask me. Before all these things blew up, they were taking a 4-year depreciation to only down to 45% to 50%-ish.
In UK, some dealers are already refusing to buy second hand cars, unless you are trading in for another car. Their lots are simply filled with second hand cars.
One really needs to adjust his expectation of car prices nowadays. Perhaps it hasn't hit the entire America YET. But sooner or later it will. With home prices are dropping the way they are now, car prices simply cannot hold up. Think about it when people need to liquidate and get more cash, what would they do? The first thing is to sell the car, since it's most liquid and it is a substantial part of most American's wealth.
With that said, 60% depreciation on a soon-to-be 3-year old car isn't entirely off scale. Remember, we are already in December, and 2009 is just around the corner. So your car is another year older already. Also, dealers are stuffed with cars in the lot. They would be dying to let go of these cars at ridiculous prices very soon -- if not already the case. If I were to buy a new S2000 now, I would be bidding it at 25K USD with a dealer. I would expect to get a call from the salesperson pretty soon asking me if I'm still interested.
Yes, it's hard to believe these prices, but 2 months from now, if you are selling a car, you would be saying "Wow ... that dude on eBay was so lucky, he managed to find a bid @ XX,XXX for that car." Just look at how much wealth has evaporated in the last few months. Just as an illustration, the world has lost 20 trillion dollars in all the stock markets -- they all were worth approximately 50 trillion at the peak. So what happens with the wealth is gone? People pay less for cars, and that's assuming that they actually have the $$ to do it ...
Anyways, I've rambled on for too long, but I really say that this is a shxt hole. In case you are buying a car, adjust your bid to really low. Same goes if you are trying to sell your car, adjust your expectation a lot lower ...
Whether or not that specific car is fine, I don't know.
Keep in mind that the US has the highest per capita GDP (PPP adjusted) of any country in the world with more than 5 million people, and the US has 300 million. It's an incredibly wealthy and large single economy where products can flow within its borders mostly without regulation so an S2K can move from, say, NY City to the booming oil town of Houston for about $500 with no additional paperwork. How easily does a car in Hong Kong get sold to China, Macau, Japan, Taiwan?
You can get a pretty good idea of asking prices around the US via Autotrader. I looked and the Ebay deal discussed is probably about $5K less than the lowest asking price on Autotrader of a comparable model/mileage S2K. As others have noted on here, it's almost certainly a scam.
Community Organizer
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 7,961
Likes: 12
From: Oregon City, OR
Originally Posted by alSpeed2k,Nov 30 2008, 10:22 AM
If the pictures are correct, it's definitely an AP2V2.
There is a reserve price, maybe it's quite high?!?!?
It says "Buyer responsible for vehicle pick-up or shipping."
There is a reserve price, maybe it's quite high?!?!?
It says "Buyer responsible for vehicle pick-up or shipping."
That makes the cost of the car itself 500-2000 cheaper as a whole.
Also, notice that the MAIN part of the sellers desciption is a graphic, not text.
Why would they go through the trouble of typing it, saving it as a graphic and then uploading it to Ebay?
Maybe because they use that same "sale" a lot.
Registered User
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 5,252
Likes: 1
From: Hong Kong
[SIZE=1][COLOR=blue]
Although America is a relatively wealthy nation, both in absolute terms due to the sheer size of the population and relative terms (e.g. personal income and GDP per capita), it still doesn't make it immune from a global meltdown in asset prices. US is a wealthy nation, but its stock market has also taken a hard hit.
The US stock market has lost somewhere in the vicinity of 9 trillion USD to about 10.5, out of the world's total 51 trillion. I do not know how much of that money belongs to foreigners, but I would imagine that people's 401K statements aren't looking pretty. Besides, Americans are also heavily leveraged, and people's savings are incredibly low -- I'm talking about the average American, and given that you are in this discussion, you probably are more cognizant and intelligent about your financial situation than 99.5% of the people in the nation. Anyway, with that said, most people actually do not have a whole lot of equity, especially after what happened to the home prices.
Cars are probably the second most important "asset" that most families have (ranking after their homes), and the car will be the first to go in distressed periods (due to cars' liquidity). Of course, the S2000 may get hit a bit less than an S2000 in Hong Kong, because there are more sportscars floating around in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong is much more finance-industry centric than the US. But at the end of the day, the S2000 is still a luxury item. The demand of S2000s comes from people who have extra money to spend. Even for wealthy individuals who have a lot money, unless they really sat on cash through this debacle, those individuals will still scale back on spending. Because no matter how one slices and dices it, everything's worth less. Go from houses to cars to stocks to bonds (with the exception of government bonds), everything has collapsed in prices, and they should.
The prices on Auto Trader are not indicative of the real world, because those prices can be as high as they want, and still don't provide a good level as to where the deal actually struck at. Perhaps eBay closing prices (for aucitons that actually dealt) will be a better indication. Maybe America, as of today, is still relatively optimistic about car prices (or asset values in general), but should this recession continue more (which imo, it will) these car prices will come down very quickly. In my opinion, the financial crisis is almost done, or at least half way through ... however, the economic crisis has barely started. Just think about how many companies are dying at the moment. A lot of those employees will be out of a job soon, and will be looking to scale back on major spending really soon. The unemployment rate creeping up like that isn't really something we can ignore.
With all that said ... it doesn't mean the car is not a scam, because I didn't look into it. I'm more concerned about car prices collapsing in general.
Anyway, for me, it was a bit of a double whammy, I had to sell my S2K in NY at a low price (relative to the prices back then), and then had to lift an offer at almost the high because S2000s are rare in Hong Kong. That's why I'm a bit bitter about car prices hahahahhaha
Originally Posted by jemmie,Nov 30 2008, 08:42 AM
It's possible what you are describing is happening in Hong Kong (if that's where you are) because Hong Kong is a far smaller economy with higher peaks and lower valleys but it's not happening in the US yet and it probably won't.
Keep in mind that the US has the highest per capita GDP (PPP adjusted) of any country in the world with more than 5 million people, and the US has 300 million. It's an incredibly wealthy and large single economy where products can flow within its borders mostly without regulation so an S2K can move from, say, NY City to the booming oil town of Houston for about $500 with no additional paperwork. How easily does a car in Hong Kong get sold to China, Macau, Japan, Taiwan?
You can get a pretty good idea of asking prices around the US via Autotrader. I looked and the Ebay deal discussed is probably about $5K less than the lowest asking price on Autotrader of a comparable model/mileage S2K. As others have noted on here, it's almost certainly a scam.
Keep in mind that the US has the highest per capita GDP (PPP adjusted) of any country in the world with more than 5 million people, and the US has 300 million. It's an incredibly wealthy and large single economy where products can flow within its borders mostly without regulation so an S2K can move from, say, NY City to the booming oil town of Houston for about $500 with no additional paperwork. How easily does a car in Hong Kong get sold to China, Macau, Japan, Taiwan?
You can get a pretty good idea of asking prices around the US via Autotrader. I looked and the Ebay deal discussed is probably about $5K less than the lowest asking price on Autotrader of a comparable model/mileage S2K. As others have noted on here, it's almost certainly a scam.
The US stock market has lost somewhere in the vicinity of 9 trillion USD to about 10.5, out of the world's total 51 trillion. I do not know how much of that money belongs to foreigners, but I would imagine that people's 401K statements aren't looking pretty. Besides, Americans are also heavily leveraged, and people's savings are incredibly low -- I'm talking about the average American, and given that you are in this discussion, you probably are more cognizant and intelligent about your financial situation than 99.5% of the people in the nation. Anyway, with that said, most people actually do not have a whole lot of equity, especially after what happened to the home prices.
Cars are probably the second most important "asset" that most families have (ranking after their homes), and the car will be the first to go in distressed periods (due to cars' liquidity). Of course, the S2000 may get hit a bit less than an S2000 in Hong Kong, because there are more sportscars floating around in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong is much more finance-industry centric than the US. But at the end of the day, the S2000 is still a luxury item. The demand of S2000s comes from people who have extra money to spend. Even for wealthy individuals who have a lot money, unless they really sat on cash through this debacle, those individuals will still scale back on spending. Because no matter how one slices and dices it, everything's worth less. Go from houses to cars to stocks to bonds (with the exception of government bonds), everything has collapsed in prices, and they should.
The prices on Auto Trader are not indicative of the real world, because those prices can be as high as they want, and still don't provide a good level as to where the deal actually struck at. Perhaps eBay closing prices (for aucitons that actually dealt) will be a better indication. Maybe America, as of today, is still relatively optimistic about car prices (or asset values in general), but should this recession continue more (which imo, it will) these car prices will come down very quickly. In my opinion, the financial crisis is almost done, or at least half way through ... however, the economic crisis has barely started. Just think about how many companies are dying at the moment. A lot of those employees will be out of a job soon, and will be looking to scale back on major spending really soon. The unemployment rate creeping up like that isn't really something we can ignore.
With all that said ... it doesn't mean the car is not a scam, because I didn't look into it. I'm more concerned about car prices collapsing in general.
Anyway, for me, it was a bit of a double whammy, I had to sell my S2K in NY at a low price (relative to the prices back then), and then had to lift an offer at almost the high because S2000s are rare in Hong Kong. That's why I'm a bit bitter about car prices hahahahhaha