1985 toyota wagon tercel 1-owner 59k!! - $2300 (hemet, CA)

[GLet71]

Where the hell is Inland Empire?! This is a 2WD:

http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/cto/3055864587.html

[dlb]

it's in your mind!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460829/

seriously, it's a real mind****. an awesome and disturbing flick, well worth a watch. as for the place of the same name, i have no idea.

[Petros]

That is a 2wd automatic, and he is dreaming if he thinks it is worth that much, low miles or not. thats 2100 miles a year? 40 miles a week? seems very unlikely.

The "Inland Empire" is the area around San Bernadino CA, which includes Hemet and a number of other once small communities, might even consider Palm Springs part of it too (2nd home of Hollywood royalty). 40 years ago no one took this part of southern CA seriously, remote and very hot and humid during the summer, and far from the beaches. Than more and more families moved to the area looking for affordable housing and less crowds, and it because more affluent. the name started as kind of a joke I think, but now it kind of stuck and locals area very proud of it. It is only nice in winter, when the beaches tend to be damp and foggy. Too crowded for me now.

[turkel]

Hello everyone, I thought you find this story interesting. I have been talking to the alleged owner of this car (Steve) for the past couple of days, in fact, I had an appointment to see the car yesterday morning at 10:00 am. Hemet is an hour and twenty minutes away from my location. So early in the AM me and my buddy take off to the wilds of the I.E.. We get there a little early to check out the situation. As we drive by the address, no car, nobody, vacant house. Just as we are pulling around to park in front of the house a county sheriff parks near the house. We pull up to the house just in front of the cop, I start to dial the number of "steve" to find out what's up. The cop comes along side our car and asks what or business is here?. I explain about the CL ad and the appointment, to which he promptly replies that it is a good chance we are being set up for a robbery and that CL ad robberies happen frequently. Victim shows up with large amount of cash, robber pulls out weapon and the rest is history. He happens to be there to serve an eviction notice on same house address. So I call "steve's" number and no Steve, he's in San Diego, moms sick call back later. Our new friend the sheriff explains the neighborHOOD we are in isn't the safest around and we would be advised to keep it moving. The curious thing is that the picture of the car in the ad was taken across the street from the location.
So me and my buddy drive out Hemet thinking we may have, quite literally, dodged a bullet and that the sheriff being there... was extremely fortuitous. I tell my buddy "you know since we are out here and luck may be on our side today, we should go to Pechanga Casino grab a beer, play a little". So we get to bar order a couple of beers, fire up the video poker, ten minutes later my buddy wins $600.00. I am playing BJ and winning $5 so I switch to poker and on the first hand AAAA $200.00 We toasted to our luck and left.

True Story, Beware!

[dlb]

holy doodle, turkel. you're not kidding that you were lucky yesterday. congrats on not getting shot and winning $200!

it's really odd when these scams use obscure cars like tercels. i've come across what i believe were a few similar ads myself. i guess it's less likely to look like a scam when they're not selling lamborghini's and mazarati's.

welcome to the forum, btw.

[ARCHINSTL]

I'd think that the prospective buyers of Lambos and Masers have one of their people do the leg work.
And I wouldn't think too many of the Eyetie cars get listed on CL.
Buyers of "Special Interest" econoboxes are the more likely prey - and if a car is advertised for only a couple of thou (or less), there is more likelihood of the mark having cash on him - or easy access to an ATM "under duress."

Heck - this Terc may have been just parked there and photographed as an innocent bystander and not part of the scam as well!

And NO! - i did not just get out of the slammer!

And to turkel - Welcome to the Club!
Tom M.

[turkel]

Thanks for the welcome guys, I did have a wad of cash so I suppose we were much more vulnerable than I ever suspected. Still, very disappointing. I have a buyer for my 87 4 door hatchback which I don't want to sell until I have a replacement. and I miss my 84. It is in Florida getting rustier every minute, but with a 100k miles shes still a runner.

[Petros]

gambling is a "tax" on those that failed math....otherwise known as "stupid tax". You guys are lucky indeed, and had the will power to stop when you were ahead.

A local family was murdered in our area when someone offered to buy a diamond ring for about half of what it was worth off a CL ad, the guy who claims he was selling it offers to come to the guys house. when they showed up, and let into the house, no ring but two guys with 9mm pistols tied the whole family up, husband, wife, and three kids. When one of the thugs decided to take advantage of the wife while tied up, the husband struggled to his feet to try and stop him. The thugs started shooting everyone, husband and one child dies, others end up in intensive care. thugs all went to jail, including idiot girlfriend who was driving the car.

take precaustions when buying something with lots of cash, if the deal does not sound right, might be best to pass it up.