You need to step back from this and get focused on what you can control. Worrying about what texts you have about an unsigned bill of sale isn’t going to get this to go away. Sure, save those, but as tjp said, a court may laugh at that as anything to be concerned with.
Cease communications until you speak to an attorney, and focus on finding one with experience with such a mess. Or wait until his sends a letter and then get one. These are things you can control. If you want to ask him what it will take to “make this right” to get you peace on the matter, that’s another thing you can control. Personally I would see if he moves on before doing that one.
History of the future- if he’s a game player with means or an accomplice attorney(himself, brother, friend) he can shake you down. A lawsuit will cost at least 15k. For you. He may not face as much if he has the right setup. The game will be chicken to see who will shell out the opening salvo in court, or see if the other guy coughs up 5k to make it go away. He’ll drum up a 30k invoice for a paint job, parts missing, engine work, etc. so you will have to choose to fight on principle or pay a lesser amount to get away from him. Will a judge or jury have knowledgeable car people that will see the issues with understanding, or will they see pictures taken to accent a flaky spot or rust on the back of a bumper and see it as you sold him a lemon?
This - stop all communication until he makes the next move, which I doubt he even does as it sounds like he is hoping you just send him money. I doubt he gets an attorney involved and likely goes away but he wont until you stop communicating with him.
After he tried to extort money from me and started handing me this bull chit about fouled sparkplug and bad sparkplug wires and needing a tuneup. BTW it had a Pertronix setup under the distributor cap. I knew this guy was going to be trouble and keep complaining so I blocked him.
He sent a few more texts and tried calling 3 more times. Hopefully he just goes away.
I'll bet he doesn't
There is some experienced advice in this post that you should be listening to. Some Car Guy's input is one, mine is another SRT's is another yet, and maybe a few more. I would suggest being proactive (step 1 Attorney) rather than burying your head in the sand HOPING he'll go away.(Not trying to be offensive just stating facts). Being Reactive is usually not a good idea for several reasons
The things he's complaining about would be less that 2k to fix at the most. A person that spent 100K (guessing) on a car is not going to be acting this way. I have dealt with many customers over the last 25 years that have been FRIED on purchases. in almost all cases the repairs are made or the cars have gone to auction. Only ONE went back to the seller demanding his $$ back on a blatant fraud. The did not know who he was dealing with
A close relative of a very wealthy well known individual with influential AND world wide contacts, OOPPS. BTW this same individual has over 125 cars in his collection. He had been burned before and this was the only time he went back to the seller. The seller told him to take a hike and soon after received a call for the Tennessee State Attorney generals office encouraging him to buy the car back ASAP before things got ugly LMAO. The seller PROMPTLY sent a check overnight covering ALL the buyer's expenses including my fees, auction, and transportation costs. Don't know where the car wound up but I did look for it for several years.
the seller was also banned from the well known auction company as he had sold 4 or 5 other fraudulent cars at the same auction
I'm done trying to help at this point
FYI: there was an attorney that used to advertise in Hemmings that specialized in classic car transactions. Don't know if he is still advertising in there or not
Good luck and do keep us posted
