When you have a buyer when selling private. How do you do the exchange. I have sold cheapo $1k-$2k beaters and have taken a money order at my house but I am going to have to sell my wife's 2013 CR-V. I should be able to get around $14k or more for it so I want to make sure I am not getting scammed. Do you suggest going to the buyers bank and watching them get a bank check for the amount and then doing the transaction there?
For what it's worth, here's my experience selling two of my cars on Craigslist. Bottom line, I had positive experiences, but you need to have just a tad bit of patience, street-smarts, people skills, and common sense.
1. 2011 Subaru WRX Limited Hatchback, 40k miles, sold in 2015 for $23k. Got quite a few spam/scam type requests, where they want to wire you money this and ship your car that. You can tell pretty quickly when they aren't willing to meet face to face, that they're scammers. Ended up selling to a college student, about to graduate who drove five hours from North Carolina with his little brother to middle of nowhere Georgia to meet and test drive. We met in the parking lot of our city's law enforcement building, and he was appreciative that I took safety seriously. I talked to him for a couple minutes, could immediately tell he was a serious buyer (if the five hour drive didn't make that obvious), and took him on a test drive. I drove for about five miles, then gave him the wheel. He did not bring cash, was not going to hand carry $23k of cash across state lines, but did bring a cashier's check for $20k. He thought he'd negotiate me down, but said he's willing to pay asking price because I was 100% honest in literally everything I said in the ad, and he said it was a fair price. We went to a bank, he and his brother took out the remaining $3k in cash, and we wrote up a bill of sale and title, I kept my plates. I felt a bit risky, but in the end I trusted my gut after having spent a good hour or so with them.
2. 2008 Dodge Caliber, 90k miles, sold in 2016 for $8k. Wife's car. No one really wanted to buy this car, but after a few weeks, got an interested buyer! Turns out to be an active duty Master Sergeant who lived on base where I worked, and we ended up meeting at his house for test drive. So immediately we just sat in his house, talked, while his wife and daughter test drove. They had a few questions on the recent work I had done to it (new tires, new alternator, etc.) then we drafted up a bill of sale and signed the title. I took his personal check - there was no doubt in my mind he was trustworthy (knew where he lived, worked, his commander, etc.) and everything went smooth. The only unfortunate thing was his wife kept texting me asking me to do MORE work on the car, trying to say that I should include it...that was unfortunate but I held my ground, saying this was final sale - go take it to a dealer if you want to spend $4k on "recommended" services and parts replacements, or I knew a local independent shop that did the honest work for much less money, and would probably laugh heartily at the dealer's "recommended" list.