selling a car in west africa
 

i would be grateful for any useful info how to succesfully sell a car in west africa (preferably mauritania).
i read one story in s-files (desert dealers) but my impression was that it consisted of pretty big portion of luck that it turned out well..it is necessary, no doubts, but still i would like to know some general know-how, scams, etc. if anybody can provide..thank you

Hear hear, interested in this too.

Next time you're in a bookshop have a look a p.461 of the book. There's some info there

CS

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Author of Adventure Motorcycling Handbook 5 and Sahara Overland II

http://www.sahara-overland.com and http://www.adventure-motorcycling.com

hello
i'mù from morocco and i had meet some of my friend coming from eurtope and they sold thezre car in mauritania with a good prices specialy mecedec and 4*4wd
so if you are unterested i can help you with that email me



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the desert its the only place where you can found your self

Chris, I've got both of your books, however, they are not readily available at my hand... I am in UK until end of this week and am going back home to Slovenia, so I'll read it then I suppose!
Cheers!!!

“Selling a car in a West African country is a hazardous pursuit, accompanied by changing regulations, graft, bribes, police restrictions, false money, un-discharged carnet and possibility of theft after the deal is done… Try and avoid it unless you are an experienced car-dealer.”
I wrote this paragraph in reply to another query a while back - and I still believe it.
If you are making a habit of selling to West African countries, travel with someone who has done it all before - drivers are always wanted.
This is not a job for a holiday trip.
Regards

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Kitmax - Traveller
http://www.kitmax.com/

thanks for your advice kitmax, of course i knew it is not like selling a car in europe, however,
do you have any more specific experiences?

I drove from Holland last year and sold my car in Tombouctou (Mali). I bought the TLC LJ70 for 1250 euro in Holland and sold it for 2,5 million CFA (around 3800eur?).
Took a few days to sell, buyers don't keep their promises and that sort of stuff.
But at the end it worked.
As soon as we got the money, we disappeared as fast as we could. We found a few fake banknotes in the cash, but we spend them in the pub.

Laisser Passez you get at the border, we burned. And there is nothing in your passport. So you can leave the country easily. No carnet is needed.

For Mauretanie it is more difficult, cause they stamp the car in your passport.

In January we do the same with an HJ60.

Cheers Mathijs

thank you mathijs,

this sounds a bit more optimistic than kitmax´s posting..i heard too that mali is probably the best country in WA to sell the car..as i found out lately there should not be at least any official burden - no need for carnet, no stamps in the passport, of course there is still the risk of robbery or fake banknotes when one gets the money as kitmax mentioned above and this is definitely serious
danger..

Hi There,
This is my experience. Last summer i drove a small nissan micra to Nouackchott.
There is a camping-place, I don't remeber the name, but the lady who runs the place is called Olivia. Ask arround in the city. There they have many contacts with car-buyers. Even the husband of olivia buys cars...
To have an idea of the value of the car i drove arround and did some talks with car-buyers in town ( ask arround, for exemple at the gasstation...) there i found out that the value was 800 euro ( smal and old car, and not a diesel. In the campingsite they gave me the same price for it. In euro's !
They also take care of the stamp you need in your paspoort. Leaving Mauretania, to Senegal, the costums did gave me some problems becouse I would need some kind of a white paper form... but then again : a 10 euro gift opens many doors ...
In Mali the value of a car is ofcourse higher...
So, for my opinion, it worked well !
a few years ago i sold a hondaXL125 bike in bamako. that bike I bought a few months before and drove it from Ghana tot Bamako. In Bamako, I worked together with some young guys, so they could look for a buyer. If you make a very clear agreement : "the one who find a buyer, gets a commision" then there is no problem...

That'll be dilated pupil Olivia who runs the Auberge Menata.
She's pretty cool, and sharper than she lets on.

what about Niger?
what do u know about selling car in Niger?

A possibility to avoid fake banknotes is to go to a bank and ask the buyer to to give the money to the bank officer and get new money from him (probably not fake).
A better option would be to go to a Western Union branch and say that the buyer pays you there and you send inmediately the money back to Europe (to a friend or family, as Western Union forbids sending money to your own's). Note:you should not allow the buyer to send the money to you, as he/she can always withdraw the money at any time with the security transaction ID.
Good luck.

+/- same like Mali - no bureaucratic obstacles.
You need time however.

Hi Mathijs
could you change your 2.5 mio Cfa back into Euros at a bank in Mali?

No problem to change Cfa into Euro in Mali, even on the street they can do it, though not really safe. You have a lot of little money change offices. Banks are there as well.

In Bamako there is also a cashwithdraw machine, where you can take CFa with a VISA card.

thanks qwer for your answer,

this looks it could be a good way how to prevent both robbery and becoming fake notes... i just consider buying travellers cheques instead of sending money via WU (i dont know if the fees are similar in africa but WU in slovakia wants about 5% fee contrary to 1+1% when changing TC..)

HI !!!
regarding getting cash at cashpoints...It should be remember that those countries have smaller daily maximum ammounts. I mean .. in Gambia ..you can not get more than 40 quid a day from cashPoints (that should be quite a lot of money in Banjul) .

Same in Dakar.. I remember the limit was around 60.000 CFAS (95 Euros/65 quid) a day , regardless of your current credit.


Also .. there's something to be known about how the overseas cashpoint system works.

1 you enter the card
2 type your PIN
3 specify the ammount you wanna get .
4 the ATM checks your available credit by making a pre-reserve request to your bank .
AT THIS POINT THE AMMOUNT IS DEDUCTED FROM YOUR CARD'S CREDIT
4 the ATM tries to give you the notes.
5 if It succeds then you get the cash , and IT sends the formal International cash withdrawal record , etc..

6 IF NOT .. then does nothing . you get your credit lowered by the ammount you tried to get.. , but got no money at all. As there are no International Cash Widthrawal Record.. sooner or later (later) you get your
money/creditc automaticly restored but that can take months.

That happens every time you get money abroad (It happens to me from time to time in UK ) , and after a few months.. I got the credit restored .

That is .. every "try" abroad with the card..lowers the limit on your card , regardless you got the money/service or not.

In Africa these incidents are much more common (out of notes , faulty connection, ATM malfunction , tampering ,e tc) ... so .. should that happenn in the middle of a trans-african expedition a few times .. you can have your card's credit down to zero without actually getting any money ! , and then you have a problem . -even that you get your credit/balance back in a few months.

Someone riding an Enfield to CT , had apparently that problenm in Togo or Ghana.

Javier

Yes, Western Union charges very high comissions, but I think that loosing all the money (robbery) or lots of it (fake notes) would be statistically bigger than paying the comission.
As to withdrawing cash abroad, you get deducted your account and don't get any money only sometimes. The other times it doesn't happen. I had such and accident in Croacia and I had about 550euros deducted (trying several consecutive times to withdrawal cash), and I got nothing. If you contact your bank inmediately they should arrange it in a few days (tell it to them, don't wait!)
As to a maximum daily limit, I had this problem in Bulgaria: the maximum daily limit for ATM's in Bulgaria is 200leva (100 euros), but I got 300 euros on one day, on 3 different and consecutive transactions on the same ATM, so this should probably be the same in Africa.

qwer http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/wink.gif
definitely paying WU comission is better than loosing money, i just meant by my note if it is possible and it could work why to pay more than necessary?

+/- same like Mali - no bureaucratic obstacles.
You need time however.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Moro, have you tried doing it in Mali, too?

If you leave by air from Nouakchott. if you are an european blanc and if you are alone. you will be definitley stopped by douane and check your passport.

So the best idea to sell the car in mauri, let douane stamp on the lady's passport.

just a small tip

+/- same like Mali - no bureaucratic obstacles.
You need time however.

Moro, have you tried doing it in Mali, too?

Don't know where exactly your question is aiming at, so:
No, not personally, bit have witnessed two deals: you hand over the keys, get the money (or vice versa), take your ex-car papers & license plates and off you go. That was back in 2003.
2004 we sold a landy 3 petrol in Agadez to a french expat for a price that was fixed in advance after we have been using the car in the region for 3 months. In the course of this time several potential buyers approached us, even though they +/- knew we were selling the car to the french woman. The price they offered us were increasing as time went buy. In the end we could have sold the car for double the price, but you know, once you give your word, you keep it...
So in my experience if you want to sell the car in Mali or Niger, a car that makes sense to the locals (diesel and as big as possible) it really is no problem and the more time you have (in which you pretend you don't want to sell it) the higher the price.
Happy with the answer?

What is the deal with right hand drive and left hand drives? Can you sell a right hand drive if its a Merc and a diesel?

Also what are the requirements in condition; how glemaing does the car have to be? Finally is there away round the carnet as the only place on my travels that will need one is Mauretania. RUBBISH!

Anyone interested in some overland travels feel free to email me.