How do I buy a motorcycle on eBay

This story - a great example of how far can cause a dream to have a bike that no one else has. Our hero Roman never stopped Hurricane "Sandy", or negligence Logistics nor astronomical cost of customs clearance. The path to the dream took almost a year. A dream in reality turned out to be heavy, literally very hot and difficult to manage. But from this it does not become worse - at least in the eyes of our hero. We recorded his story and publish it on the eve of season. If you are of sound mind, do not try!

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For two years I moved to Russia in malorasprostranёnnom car Alfa Romeo. The first bike I had also not easy - BMW F800R Chris Pfeiffer Edition, one of the 68 special series Motyka after stantraydera Chris Pfeiffer. In fact, in addition to the original color, a facsimile of an athlete on falshbake and cool exhaust system Akrapovic, there was nothing unusual. Two-cylinder bike was the ideal machine for the city - and quite nimble enough nenapryazhno. And more reliable. For the first moto better than you can imagine. In two years, the motorcycle dashed 7, 5000 kilometers and starred in the film "Rendezvous" with Vladimir Kristovskis starring. By the end of the second season I did, "rolled" in a BMW and a little bored. I wanted something fundamentally different. But what exactly? On this question, I myself could not answer yet.



First contact
Making the work head in the right direction, my colleague, who seriously studied the culture of creating custom bikes. From him I learned that in the customizing there are many currents and branches. A colleague was an engineer, knew materiel and on the fingers could be explained by a concrete example, that of a custom bikes "labor," and that does not fit the canons of style. He broke several myths that were in my head for a long time. For example, wheel-aphenger really should be called eyphengerom (ape hanger) - due to batten down the hands of the rider, which make him look like a monkey grabbed a branch. I began to search for images on the Internet. Of course, motorcycles West Coast Choppers and Confederate produced the most memorable, but were clearly intended for very wealthy people. How I can I can not name at all desire.

Either nothing better to do, whether out of curiosity at the beginning of August 2012, I once went on eBay and drove in search phrase custom bikes. And I saw him - RedNeck Bob This. As the name implies, the creators of the bike positioned it as a bobber. About RedNeck Engineering office itself, I did not know anything. Active search showed that it is a local manufacturer of ready-made sets of motorcycles and "do it yourself" from South Carolina. That is in front of me - the most that neither is "truёvy" machine. I flipped through the pictures, I realized that was gone forever, and loaded on a bet with his eyes closed on a mark «For US customers only».



Purchase and payment
The price of the bike is constantly growing, and I missed the moment when my bet turned out a bit. Someone obviously bullish, and got his way, adding to the price of some couple of hundred bucks. I had already imagined myself riding on this bike, so terribly upset when my bike taken away from under his nose. However, very soon, literally at the end of August on eBay surfaced the same lot that seemed suspicious. I wrote the seller a private message and asked what was going on. It turned out, the winning auction, the buyer could not even gather up the money for advance payment, which is a major purchase on eBay is 1000 dollars. I made a bid on the same motorcycle, and she won. But it turned out that I rejoiced too early. A real Veselukha, which now comes to mind, like a nightmare. Anyone who will read further, I want to say: "Do not try!»

Needless to say, that by the time I won RedNeck at the auction the full amount on hand I had. I transferred the first tranche of $ 1 thousand dollars seller through PayPal. Comrade did not react to it. It took a few letters from him to get confirmation that the money came from. I asked the seller a small delay on principal payments and rushed to sell the Street BMW. Luckily, I quickly bought it, and the remaining amount migrated overseas. Dude was happy.



Logistics
The bike is not iPhone, mail in Russia was not crossing. Especially the bike was sold with a mark «For US customers only». "When and how will you pick up your motorcycle?" - With this phrase begins each telephone conversation with the seller. The Americans obviously did not want to make unnecessary movements, so the request to organize transportation to Moscow moto I had to forget immediately. I myself have had to find and hire a specially trained person who will take the bike from the former owner and sent it to me.

Of course, I could not boast of its steep motorcycle on Facebook. Among the enthusiastic commentators appeared skeptical that gently asked, I'll take the bike to Russia. I asked if he had any options. He all of a sudden told me about their friends who are looking for maslkary States to Russian customers and carry them across the ocean. We wrote off in PM, I got contacts and call these guys.
I suspect that took up my case, they merely an acquaintance. After all, they, it turns out, have deprived themselves of the money for the services of search of the necessary equipment and missed a chance to earn a couple of hundred bucks in the bargain with the owner of the motorcycle. Apparently, the children were not in hand to haul a half-empty container that was the place and chose to work to zero, but to recoup transport their cargo. Since I was asked to deposit. Because these were "his people," I hesitate to ask for a receipt, to send money to someone Neznamov and prepared to wait.

Once the dead of night in early October, and the seller called me hysterically demanded an explanation: Who are these strong guys that came to him in a van and in bad English require the issuance of a motorcycle? He had to explain that these are my friends, that in the United States with a convenient opportunity and that I have instructed to pick up the bike to put him on a ship to Europe. It had great difficulty to calm him down and make sure that this was not the Russian mafia.

The motorcycle was taken and transported to the port of New Jersey, but the container with one free place moto did not wait and sailed away to Finland, as my logistics do not meet the deadline. I vyzvonil mediator, and he said that he had formed another batch of cars, which will soon also be distributed on the container. Since the court was October, the season has ended in Russia because there was nowhere to hurry, I agreed. Hurricane
End of October was one of the most nervous periods of my life. US East Coast covered Hurricane "Sandy", and New York, according to television reports, and does almost washed away. The storm raged for several days. I do not stay in one place, every hour call logisticians, but he just ignored me. A few days later, he did deign to pick up the phone and said that things are bad. Port flooded, his work is paralyzed, and the mediator has lost three containers with the product. It is clear that the fate of my bike did not interest him. He pёksya its technology and already considered a loss. In insurance it count sense was not - it is in the case of a hurricane is not working. I cursed the vagaries of weather and mentally ready to write off the pile of money that paid for the motorcycle. At best, I bring "snag" in the worst will not deliver a container at all.



The path from Finland
Last November and December. I met a sad mood New Year. After some time, the mediator made contact. He was not in good shape - because of the history of the hurricane he was heavily in debt. The mediator asked me to write the number of the container and independently trace the geographical coordinates of the cargo. It was found that the container for a long time in Finland, and its simple stock in the port dripped sour fines. When I asked why I was not told that the container is already in Europe, logistician anything intelligible answer I could not. And then I have suffered, I announced logisticians that the second part of the money for the delivery of it to be seen that I will deal with the container itself, and that this situation is fair for both of us. Quite crestfallen logistician reluctantly agreed, and the more we talked with him.

Thus, the container with the motorcycle was in Europe. And close enough to Moscow. It's good. The bad thing was that I had no idea what state the contents. But the most disgusting - I had no idea how to pay for the storage container at the port and how to ship the bike to Moscow. I again helped the case. It was in the middle of April of 2013. I was talking with a colleague in his new job, and told him about the misadventures of a motorcycle. A colleague took unexpected help. He called his friend, who was planning to make a living order of motorcycles in the US, customs clearance and transportation to Moscow. Buddy owned minibus and was not averse to ride in Finland and help with the decision of my question.

It was probably the only person in all of history who has fulfilled his full fee. First, he acted quickly. Secondly, he paid for the extra urgent simple container out of their money (which I told him then, of course, returned). Third, he collected all the necessary documents and put the bike in a customs warehouse in the suburbs. He was a great guy, always went with me, explaining where to put a signature, and sincerely worried if something went wrong. Oleg, if you're reading this, thank you!

But the real news was that Motik not affected by seawater. Apparently, the container with the motorcycle was the third or fourth floor of the port and the ocean was not strong enough to get to my bobber. I immediately cheered.

Customs
May Day celebrations were held in anticipation of the rather "wheelchairs" to the pathos bike. When they began the process of customs clearance. When I agreed to mediate the transport of moto of the United States, for the sake of interest, I asked the cost of a customs clearance of such a device. He said that it would cost about 140-160 thousand. I mentally prepared to part with this sum, but the customs authorities have their sights set on my money. For customs clearance motorcycle charged me 388,000 rubles. The auction price was lower than the cost RedNeck customs clearance, or the former owner of the device was simply not sell. A substantial loss of value - almost market law for the technology, which is created for a particular connoisseur. It remains to understand where it came from an astronomical sum of customs clearance and why it is so much at odds with the assessment logistician, who during his life drove through customs is clearly more than a dozen cars.

It turned out that at the customs, as well as everywhere in our country, double standards prevail. One option - the customs clearance for the volume of the engine, the amount of horsepower and year of manufacture. If you use a custom calculator, you get exactly the amount that I was called to the bike during transport from the United States. But Russian customs would not be Russian customs, if not prepared a trap in case of import of exclusive technology. In my case it included a "plan B". It turns out that all customs rare technique of the market value of a particular vehicle. The funny thing is that the Russian Customs, customs clearance takes data on a "plan B" of American (!) Directory NADA, where my bike is worth 25 thousand dollars. At the same tariff for customs clearance of greater than 40%.
I rushed to the customs broker. Broker listened to my story and said that nothing can be done. And thus dispelled the myth on the subject of the broker - a structure that plays on your side. The broker is on the side of customs. The system is designed so that such brokerage firm receives based on the amount of money that it has paid the client in favor of the native state. Therefore, in the interests of the broker you breed to the maximum. I was ready to go to the end and asked what options there is. I was told that my last straw - an independent examination.

There was nothing to lose, and we decided to play the expert scene "import scrap for recovery." Clumsy look of the bike then turned more than ever out of place. On the site evaluator rolled a strange bike with a minimum of kapotirovki, painted matt black paint and without lighting. Even the Motik seemed accustomed to the role of the "wood" - a barely turned his starter because of a dead battery, and never wound up. "Well, what do you want? Apparatus dead under reconstruction "- we built a hand.

Layfhakeram note: customs clearance techniques for recovery does not mean that you will be asked a penny for a set of spare parts. In my case, customs clearance cost in the region of 150 thousand rubles. The system was able to outwit, but it failed to win - so it is arranged. Therefore, dear lovers of the exotic, do not flatter yourself and think carefully, there are chosen, "wood" that kind of money.

Put motorcycle on the account was a matter of relationships. If everything is done as it should be, I suspect I would have waited another round of administrative hell. At the end of August, I received a call from the traffic police and asked slowly and Russian letters say the correct name of the model. I was a little taken aback: why should they? And then it dawned on me. The officer on the other end of the carefully recorded the information in the database traffic police. I realized the degree of exclusivity of my device. I - the only owner RedNeck Bob This «in the room" in the Russian Federation! Instead of conclusion
Buying motorcycle dreams on eBay from the outset looked dubious idea, but in fact so completely into a risky and expensive venture. The bike I won the auction on Sept. 7, 2012, and put him "in the numbers" on August 28 but the 2013th. The saga lasted a year and cost me a huge amount of money and nerves. In total I spent on the bike almost one million rubles, with part of the money invested in it (and invested until now) is already in Russia. The Americans obviously saved on the little things, and all the winter I have been correcting the effects of the economy - finally normal colored bike changed brutally tight grip on the option with hydraulic drive (it has become more user friendly, than the standard), set quality mirrors, removed the flaws in the wiring , remade under the number pad of the Russian sample, he conjured with Seats. Now I ponder over the next repainting and motorcycle airbrush tank.

The second time the trick with the purchase of a motorcycle on eBay, I certainly would not dare repeat. I venture to assemble a bunch of their own experience and give some advice to those who want to realize their dream of a two- or four-wheel via the online auction:

Weigh the pros and cons. And check out how your "I want!" Outweighs the huge pile of problems that you have to overcome.
Learn the market and understand, whether in Russia or in Europe there are no alternatives to your dream.
Get a Dating at customs and traffic police. And accept the fact that you have to solve problems through informal means, no matter how it was disgusting to you.
Find out the cost of cataloging technology to immediately dispel the illusions about the "plug" clearance.
Be prepared to work on parole and lose money. Because if you at every step will require a receipt, you simply send.
If you have these problems is not a problem, you are a complete fool. From you can either stay away or admire the dedication. Good luck!



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