The riskiest moment in a private car sale isn't the test drive. It's the ten minutes where the buyer says the money has been sent and you're standing in a driveway deciding whether to hand over the keys.
There's one rule that resolves it: the keys don't move until the funds have cleared in your account. Not sent. Not pending. Cleared, and visible in your balance.
"Sent" and "cleared" are not the same thing. A transfer that shows as sent on the buyer's phone can still fail, be reversed, or simply never have existed — a screenshot proves nothing.
Bank transfer, done properly
A bank transfer is the standard way to pay for a car privately, and it's fine — provided you wait for the money to land.
Meet at the buyer's own bank branch. This is the single best piece of practical advice on this page. The buyer initiates the transfer with a teller, you can see it happen, and if anything about the transaction is irregular the bank surfaces it. It also puts the handover somewhere public with cameras, which solves a safety problem at the same time.
Understand the daily limits. Instant transfers between Australian banks run over the New Payments Platform, and both banks and individual accounts apply daily caps. Those caps are often lower than the price of a car, and lower still on a newly-added payee. A buyer who genuinely intends to pay may simply not be able to move the whole amount in one day. Ask about this before the handover, not during it — otherwise you're improvising a solution while both of you are standing in a car park.
Watch out for the newly-added-payee delay. Some banks hold the first payment to a new payee. That's a normal control, not a red flag, but it changes your timing.
Methods that need more care
Bank cheques. Once the default for a car sale, now a genuine risk. Bank cheques can be forged convincingly, and the forgery may not surface for days — well after the car has gone. If a buyer insists on a bank cheque, go with them to the issuing bank and have it verified there, or ask for a transfer instead.
Personal cheques. No. There is no version of this that protects you.
Cash. Immediate and irreversible, which is the appeal. The problems are practical: counting a large sum accurately, counterfeit notes, and the plain risk of having that much cash on you. If you do take cash, count it at a bank and deposit it immediately. Some banks require notice for large withdrawals, so a buyer promising cash may need a day or two to arrange it.
Third-party "escrow" services the buyer suggests. A scam pattern common enough to have its own section further down.
Deposits
A deposit is reasonable if a buyer wants you to hold the car, and it filters out time-wasters. Two things to agree in writing before you accept one: how much, and what happens to it if the buyer walks away. Put both in a text message or email so there's a record. A deposit paid by transfer is easier to trace than cash.
Don't treat a deposit as a reason to hand over the car. A deposit holds the car; the balance releases it.
One distinction worth holding onto, because it's the difference between a normal transaction and a scam: returning a deposit you agreed to return, to the person who paid it, from the account they paid from, is ordinary business. Being asked to send money to a different account, or to refund an overpayment, is not — see below.
The overpayment scam
A buyer sends more than the agreed price — often much more — then apologises and asks you to refund the difference. In the version of this that costs people money, the original payment is reversed later and the refund you sent isn't. If a buyer overpays, don't refund it yourself. Contact your bank, tell them what happened, and let them unwind it.
The pattern to distrust is any request to send money to a buyer beyond returning their own deposit to their own account — a refunded overpayment, a "shipping agent", a transport company you didn't engage. Scamwatch keeps current descriptions of how these run; it's worth two minutes before a large sale.
Fake escrow and "buyer protection" services
Treat any escrow or payment-protection arrangement the buyer introduces as fraudulent until proven otherwise. This is one of the most common private-sale scams: the buyer sends a convincing confirmation email from a service that doesn't exist, telling you the funds are held safely and to release the car. By the time you check, the car is gone.
You don't need an intermediary for a private car sale. A transfer that lands in your account, verified by you, in your banking app, is the protection.
Verifying who you're dealing with
Ask to see the buyer's driver licence and take their details from it. You need their name and address for your state's notice of disposal anyway, so this isn't an imposition — it's a form you have to fill in.
If the name on the licence doesn't match the name they gave you, or the name on the account the money came from, stop. There may be an innocent explanation, and you can ask for it. But a third party paying for a car in someone else's name is worth understanding before the keys change hands, not after.
The receipt
Write one, even though no state requires it. Both parties' names, the date, the sale price, the VIN, the odometer reading, and both signatures. Keep a copy.
It costs nothing and it's the document that establishes who owned the car and from when — which matters if a fine arrives, if the buyer never transfers the registration, or if there's any later dispute about the vehicle's condition at handover.
After the money clears
Two things, in this order: hand over the keys, then lodge your state's notice of disposal. Do the second one the same day. Until it's lodged, your state still has the car in your name — and so does everyone issuing fines and tolls. Deadlines differ: 7 days in WA and Tasmania, 14 in most of the rest.
What this means if you're selling on MotorLoop
The money for the car moves directly between you and your buyer. MotorLoop doesn't sit in the middle of the vehicle payment, hold it, or guarantee it — and that's deliberate, because a payment intermediary is exactly the thing the fake-escrow scam imitates. Verify the funds yourself, in your own banking app.
What we do change is earlier in the process. Buyers message you in the app, so listing a car on MotorLoop doesn't mean publishing your phone number to everyone who scrolls past. You share it once you've decided the buyer is real.