Dealership accidentally sells BMW for $1

The “Buy it Now” field can be a dangerous place to make a typoYou’ve probably seen those too-good-to-be true car ads in the newspaper, where a new car is offered at a ridiculously low price. But seldom do you see a BMW offered for $1, and even more seldom do you see BMWs actually being sold at that price. Thanks to a New Zealand dealership’s costly typo, though, that’s exactly what happened.The dealership, Stadium Cars in Christchurch, frequently offers cars on online auction sites with a one New Zealand dollar reserve — about 81 cents in U.S. currency — allowing the vehicles to sell at any price the market demands. In this case, however, that $1 figure was entered into the wrong field, allowing any buyer with a single dollar the opportunity to instantly purchase the car. Before the dealership could realize its mistake, that’s exactly what happened — a buyer identified only as “bignz” wound up getting the deal of his or her life: a 1994 BMW 320i.According to the dealership, the $1 sale was most definitely an unintended mistake — after all, the car in question was worth the equivalent of $2,400. Still, they’re going to honor the sale, because, according to dealership manager Mike Nokes, “we are firm believers in the auction process and for it to be fair to buyers and sellers alike.”Before you start booking a flight to New Zealand to grab your own one-dollar car at auction, know that the dealership is going to be much more careful in the future. “[The BMW is] hopefully the only car we sell for $1,” says Nokes.Agencies