As long as we are swapping stories. I answered an ad for a guy that had a load of lumber left over in his garage maybe 15 sheets of plywood and a huge stack of 2x4s etc. It was in kind of a bad section of town and I pulled up in front of the house and got out and before I could walk to the house 3 police cars race up and drive up into the front yard and block me in. They run past me and enter the house. I retreated a little wondering if there was going to be gun fire. The owner of the house comes out leaving the cops inside and yells to me are you the guy coming for the wood? I said yes and he walked over and I asked whatâs with the police. He said oh I just got home and my door was smashed in and my TV and lots of stuff was stolen and they want to check the house that they are still not in there. The cops wanted to know what I saw. I said I pulled in 2 seconds before they did. Gave the guy 50 bucks and drove away with a truckload of wood.
Another time I was buying 2 exterior doors in a nice rich neighborhood I knock on the door and the woman of the house comes to the door with a tire iron in her hand. I told her we talked about the doors on the phone and she waves the tire iron and said ok this is if you are planning on raping me. I was kind of speechless and said tell you what let me come back when your husband is home. She said no, no you seem ok. She invites me in we walk all the way thru her house and go into the garage 10â from where I parked. All she needed to do was open the garage door and tell me to meet her in the garage. The doors looked like brand new and just like the ones they replaced them with. As I loaded them up and paid her she never put the tire iron down.
I also have had quite a few people want to meet at a gas station or convince store. One guy I bought a riding mower from pulled up with the mower in the back of his truck and we put our tailgates together and he fired it up and drove it from his truck into mine. Getting it out was a bit more work.
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Oh my gosh, you should not have gone in her house!
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Husband says US servicemembers can register US spec vehicles. Itâs an element of SOFA (Status of
Forces Agreement).
We usually meet at a bank and walk in and use the work area to transfer titles or money. Security, cameras, guards.
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Iâm in a very rural area too, and Iâve found an agreeable meeting place in town works better for buyers too. Understandably, many donât want to go out to someplace in the woods they donât know with no one else around.
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You are correct it is what I call 20/20 hindsight. I didnât take my eye off her or her tire iron. LOL
After her Granny passed we were helping clean out her house and her two daughters were tossing everything out to the dump. I kept grabbing things that I thought too good to toss and one item was an old black candlestick phone. I put it on CL with a photo around the time of covid and got a reply from a guy in Pittsburgh about 100 miles away. I was asking 100 dollars and he said he was a phone collector and would come to see it but it had to be outside and we needed to stay 10â apart. He drove all the way up and I had two chairs on my deck about 15â apart and he had his mask and gloves and a disinfectant wipes. I had it sitting by his chair that he wiped down prior to sitting and then he cleaned the phone with his wipes. We talked as he checked it out for about a half hour he was a really interesting guy. He found a tiny crack on the bottom of the base and told me he wasnât interested because of that. But the phone would be good for parts or a beginner collector would like it. I said do you know any beginner collectors as I donât. He said oh sure he knew a few. I told him well you drove all that way make me an offer. He said well I would give you 50 as thatâs what he could resell it for. I said you have a deal. He pulled out a 50 dollar bill and cleaned it and set it on the stand. I gave the money to the daughters to split and they couldnât believe someone paid for that old piece of junk.
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When the kids come up to the door selling pizzas for band I tell them their pizzas are awful, but would it be ok to just give them the money and they keep the pizza. Last time I did that the girl said I donât know let me ask my dad. She ran to the car and came back and I said what did he say? She said he said hell yes. 
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Love it! That is a fantastic idea! The only time it happened at our house, it was indeed pizza kits they were selling. And the pizza was indeed terrible. And the kids, as it turned out, werenât even from the local district. Not sure how on earth that happened, unless they lived close but were in the schools of choice program (but the school they went to isnât the one people choose 
). 
It was all very weird. But I had these two coatless tykes on my porch, in that nasty wet blustery late fall weather, when itâs just miserable outside. I had no choice. It was clearly a plot.
If it wasnât retrofitted. all he could do was drive it on the base installation. He and wife walked to work or Ubered for 3 years. He was in Portsmouth England as Senior Fleet training Officer for an aircraft carrier( newest in the world) for the British Navy. The Navy couldât afford it so as they took possession of it they couldnânt man it so for 3 years(9 years ago) he trained squadrons in the Middle East
I always remember when I was a kid I went to the grocery store with my dad and two of my classmates were standing there with a bucket in their Little League uniforms. They asked for a donation and my dad asked them what they needed the money for? They told him new uniforms. My dad told them the ones they had on looked pretty good to him. The kid told my dad we donât play ball in these uniforms.
It was like yesterday my dad told them when he was a kid during the depression they were so poor his Little League team all turned their tee shirts inside out and called their team the Fruit of the Looms. Needless to say they didnât get any money from him. Now when I see kids in uniform asking for money I always give them some. Haha
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Around here, and Iâm rural too, there is a non-profit called the Freecycle Network. Works the same as you said - no locations until someone expresses interest and then you can arrange to meet someplace other than your home.
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UK is different and each country has their own SOFA treaty.