Buying new equipment is an interesting process. I'm not very spontaneous when it comes to spending bigger sums of money, so normally I'll be taking a while to compare instruments, looking for information and reviews, going to shops to try out stuff, asking colleagues for their opinion, etc. That can be fun, but over time, it can get a bit tedious.

Lately, I noticed that buying a car is not exactly stress-free either. We don't have a car so far and now want to get one. Having all kinds of expectations, we need to think out which points to compromise on. I'd love to have a small car that – once I have to transport a drummer with his equipment – suddenly turns into a band van… Well, actually we've been driving something like that since a while.

While browsing through online used car portals, we found a rather nice Volvo XC70 – a bit big for us, but at a surprisingly low price, and with tempting features. We decided to just take a look at it, but the phone number seems to have been misspelt: A nice old lady explained that she doesn't have a car to sell, and yes, there had been quite a number of calls already… I then sent an e-mail message to the vendor, but didn't really expect anything to come out of it.

And then, a week later, there was an E-Mail: The guy selling a car was on a business trip, but was now able to meet up. And then, in the second e-mail, after a longish personal story, the only important piece of information: The car was not in a city about 40 kms from our house, but – in London.

Well, that was it: A nice car, in a good state, surprisingly cheap, but suddenly located in London, and no contact data after a few reminders – that one is too typical a scheme to be true.

And the moral of the story? If a deal is too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

And the search will go on.

Photo: (cc) Andrei