We sold "Winter" I walked round her and pointed out all the little old vehicle eccentricities, we had talked already about how she needed her radiator fixed pronto, and that had been taken off the price. We smiled, shook hands, they drove off happy with Winter purring along.
On the way to her new home she overheated and produced smoke. The buyer went ballistic, he wanted his money back now, saying : "it was not his van, he was going to call the police and say there was a van outside the house with no tax and insurance, he was going to take us to court..." You've never seen so many CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation points in an email!!! It was very upsetting, and I'm a bit pathetic when it comes to being threatened, reading it made my hands shake.
Tim is a bit braver than me, he did the gentleman's thing and took my phone for a while! They probably don't have a legal leg to stand on as we put all the faults in the listing or told them, but it's hard to know what they would try to prove as they will give no specifics, just a list of faults I showed them and threats. We call ebay and the police, (to find out what happens if they carry that threat out) they both say they are not interested, we sold the van, they took the vehicle, end of story. We discuss blocking the calls and leaving them to cool down and ether fix or re-sell Winter. Tim feels he should help them.
We called the lady who had offered the asking price if I would let psyco-buyer down. (I wish I had not been so high on my integrity.) She still wanted "Winter" yes, she fully understood it needs the radiator fixed and can overheat till its fixed. More could be wrong too, we don't know as the new owners have not taken it to a garage, just left it in the street and attacked us (turns out they left it in their street 100 yards from a garage).
Tim found out where Winter was and met the lady who still wants to buy her there to view it. She had to bring her two pugs and there five puppies, which were too little to leave all day! They dropped Tim home and we all got to see the puppies! :)
Other people from the list of people interested would all still like it. Her new owner calms down and is ok. All the people interested need to know what it will cost to fix her, Tim books her into the nearest garage. He spends a whole day helping them to re-sell Winter.
I now feel so threatened and cowed that I just want to stay home and hide from the world forever, preferably in bed, but I think we would all regret that. Also I keep wondering if I did something to merit all the furious threats, I know she needed fixing and I had a long chat with him on the phone about that, he told me confidently he had the friends and skills to do it. I told him I was no mechanic.
I decide I have to continue as if my heart was in it and wait for my courage to catch up. So Jasmine, my mum and I go for "Sparkle" the very non-sparkeling van which is more right for us because it has four seatbelts and is ready to go. We take five trains to get there and my mum and I take turns to drive her back. My daughter was traveling 12 hours without complaint, bodes well for taking her all over Europe. Sparkles seller is a brilliant chilled out, alternative sort of accountant! Have you ever even thought of a hippy-accountant! You should meet one, they are awesome! He really likes our plan I tell him "If my kids grow up and want to be like everyone else that's fine with me, but I want it to be an informed choice, not just something that happened to them, that's the backbone of my travel plans."
Sparkle runs just as well as Winter always did for me. But she's not got the above cab bed, so she's much less rocky and wind resist-ish to drive. Oh! And the power! I'm in love with having a 5L engine, hang the petrol costs, it's so nice to have so much, get-out-of-trouble extra there if you want it. Frankly, sitting on the left and driving on right hand side roads sucks!!! I'm going to prefer driving her in Europe for sure. Sparkle has nothing inside but a bed seat and lights, and one 12v socket (that's the cigarette lighter sort) We are going to fit a second battery and an awning. Then we will get all plug in separate things, plug in cool box, plug in kettle... You get the idea. It's going to be more camping-ish, less little-home-on-wheels. We will be able to park and drive her closer in to cities and use her more like a car. We will not have running water, it's a trade off.
The next day Winter's buyer is back to making threats. We are going to have to tell him, "It's your van, you bought it, drove it off and we told the DVLA, we are helping you because we feel sorry for your bad luck, we sold her in good faith, running fine with an oil leak and a radiator leak both in the listing and discussed with you, if you don't stop sending threats we will have to stop helping you find a new buyer."
In the meantime I'm trying not to let all the hate and threats stop me feeling pleased with Sparkle (I'm going to have to put something that sparkles on it to make sense out of my daughter's name for it).
Hopefully these people will calm down if they get a new offer for Winter once we know what she will cost to fix.
I'm so wishing I'd said yes when I was offered the asking price and pick it up today, if only I'd known how vindictive the person I was keeping my promise to would turn out to be.
I had planned to say "I love it when a plan comes together" because Sparkle is the van used in the new A Team movie but it's not really where I'm at right now. I am pleased with my classic American campervan.
No comments:
Post a Comment