Recently, I got involved in a car accident and managed to wreck my truck. The insurance paid me the money, but there weren`t near enough to get a new one and going to the bank for a loan was out of the question. I tried locally at first, but nobody had one for sale. I decided to look online for a used one. I found a few in my price range on eBay and Craigslist, but they did not seem legit. The prices were too good to be true and I thought that they are either salvaged or don`t even exist. I didn`t want to lose my deposit or end-up the owner of a scrap pile.
An old buddy advised me to use onleaders.com. The first thing that came into my head was online fraud and I was really afraid about the outcome. However, it seems that they are not fraudsters, but a legit escrow company. Having no other solid option, I decided to give them a shot.

I found a good truck with an acceptable usage level, but it was up in the north, close to the Canadian border. I contacted onleaders.com and they advised me that I should ask for the truck to be driven somewhere close to me for an inspection. After the inspection, I will choose to release the money from the account to the seller. Sounded pretty good to me, but the seller insisted that I should pay for the shipping fees before had (the gas money).  I told him that I won`t do it, but we can escrow the shipping fees too. After a few back and forth talks, I managed to convince him to accept the deal. When the truck arrived, I couldn’t believe what a total wreck it was. I asked the guy what was he thinking when he drove it. Who could have possibly accepted it? I canceled the transaction and got my money back from onleaders.com. They send me back the full amount minus $25. Looking back at the whole situation, I think those were the best $25 I ever spent.

As an advice for anyone that wants to buy a car or a truck from eBay or Craigslist, please use escrow for your money`s sake. There are numerous legit services out there that will rid you of scam attempts such as this one.