Available is not the same as cleared
This one sentence prevents most of the fraud in private vehicle sales. When you deposit a cheque, your bank may make the funds available within a day or two as a courtesy. That is not the same as the instrument having cleared. A forged cashier's cheque can bounce weeks later, and the money comes straight back out of your account — long after the car has gone.
So the question to ask your bank is never "can I see the money?" It is "is this final, and can it be reversed?"
The methods, ranked
Best — final before the keys move
- Cash, counted at a bank teller's window. Let the bank verify and deposit it. Counterfeits get caught by someone whose job it is to catch them, and you leave with the money in your account.
- A cashier's cheque verified in person at the issuing bank. Not your bank — the bank whose name is printed on it, with you standing there. If they cannot or will not verify it, you do not have a payment.
- An ACH bank transfer that has settled. Slower than it looks (several days), but once settled it cannot be charged back the way a card can.
Only once genuinely cleared
- Zelle, Venmo, Cash App. Only when the money is visible in your own account, in your own banking app. Never a screenshot, never an emailed confirmation, never a "pending until you hand over the keys" — that state does not exist. Most of these services also cap transfers well below the price of a car and offer no protection between strangers.
Never — no exceptions worth making
- Sending a wire. No legitimate purchase requires the seller to send money.
- Cryptocurrency, gift cards, personal cheques from strangers, money orders from an unfamiliar source.
- Any overpayment with a refund request. The incoming payment is fraudulent; the refund you send is real money.
- An escrow site the buyer chose and linked you to. If escrow is warranted, you pick it, you find it independently, and you ring them on a number you looked up.
Structure the handover so nobody goes first
The underlying problem is symmetrical: the seller does not want to release the car before the money is real, and the buyer does not want to send money before the car is theirs. Three ways to resolve it:
| Meet at the buyer's bank | The cleanest answer, and free. The bank verifies the funds and moves them while you both watch, then you sign and hand over the keys. Why the bank beats everywhere else → |
| Meet at a tag or DMV office | The title transfer completes on the spot, so there is no "I'll sort the title next week". Pair it with money already banked. |
| Use a delayed payout | The buyer pays by bank transfer, the funds settle into the seller's own account, and the payout to their bank releases once you both confirm the handover. Useful when a branch visit is not practical. How ours works → |
Whatever you accept, write it down
A signed bill of sale recording the amount, the date, the method and an as-is clause is what settles the argument later — and for the seller, the dated record is what ends responsibility for tickets and tolls.