Weird sale deal- what should I do?

[tommyboy-afloat]

Originally Posted by gma4

Fred: I hope I am wrong, but...
This has several earmarks of a scam.

1) Full price offer
2) Person never saw the boat
3) Doesn't care about condition
4) He sounds so genuine on the phone.

And please, Fred, DO NOT assume that if his check "clears" at your bank, that the money is in your pocket. Fraudulent checks are often "cleared" early in the process, and later....sometimes weeks...the bank notifies you that they have determined it too be forged and pull the money from your account. If you have already taken the money out, you can expect that they will look to you for repayment.
You should talk to your bank and see what they recommend. Often the best procedure is to have his bank wire the money to your bank account. If the seller doesn't want to do this, then you know exactly what you are dealing with.

Again, I hope I am wrong.....
Greg

I agree with Greg. It may be all ok however bad things can happen.


Who did you speak to to confirm the bank was legit? Did the clarify that this person is a customer of theirs. Did they confirm that he has spoken to them about the purchase? If he has not confirmed to them that he wants to buy the boat then don't go ahead until they confirm he has. Go see your bank and get them involved or go to a local branch of his bank and ask them to confirm he is a real person and the bank people you spoke to are real.



Quadriple check everything and then confirm it all again. If you lose out you may lose alot more than your boat. Due diligence is very important in this case.


Explain to him that this is an unusual way of selling a boat and ask him if you can get his bank to deposit his money directly to your bank. No Cheque at all. Direct bank transfer is the only way I would do it. Good luck.
Dave

[BlueH2Obound]

Originally Posted by BobMc

Had a similar experience yesterday (Aug 11, 2020) but via email. Listed our trawler on powerboatlisting.com and within a day had an email from a person with an address of richbarton@goupmail.com. Originally stated "I'm interested. Please send me details" so I responded with a little bit of text with some info and a link to our web site which has all the info and many photos. Second email from same email address, a couple of hours later, "Thanks for your message. Has any work been done on it lately?" so I again responded with an email list of some recent upgrades. Third email a few hours after that: "Sounds good. I'll take it. I'm currently on a business trip. I'll make a wire transfer then arrange pickup after payment clears. Let me know. Thanks, Rich" In my response I stated that I'd accept a cashiers check made payable to me, and that when it cleared my bank I'd arrange transfer of title and the boat. Haven't heard anything since!

If figured from the second email that this was one of those "If it's too good to be true, it probably is" type of things so I researched the email address and telno, also checked the source headers of the original email. Nothing unusual showed up until I checked the telno via google and turned up several different "businesses" in the Portland, Oregon, area, some of whom had bad reports at the BBB and FTC regarding overcharging, failure to deliver merchandise, etc.

The likelihood of this being the real thing are pretty darned slim - I don't need to be reminded about all the scams out there as I'm well aware of them. I'll have a better idea if there's ever a response. In the meantime, I'm going to try to report this to powerboatlisting.com so see if they've had any other complaints about this email address.

As the Sergent Phil Esterhaus said on Hill Street Blues after morning roll call: Be careful out there!

Bob, the statement above in red is suspect. If he's making a "wire transfer", then it takes minimal time for it to "clear". Here what I suspect the scammer is intending to do:
First, he used the term "wire transfer" in his response. That is to establish his bona fides as a legitimate player
HOWEVER, what he will say is that he "wired" the money to his bank so they could cut a cashiers check which will be sent to you. At this point it falls into the regular scam where the check is for more than the purchase amount, he then requests that you wire the extra to him, or an associate as soon as HIS check "clears". For his purpose, he will attempt to convince you that the check has "cleared" as soon as you see the money in your account . . . but as stated in many of the posts above, the check is fraudulent, your bank will not know for 5 to 30 days, and then the money will be taken back out of your account. But if you have wired the "overage" to anyone, you've lost it.
They have no interest in your boat, their entire focus is to use your sale as a gimmick to get you to wire money to them.

Good luck on the sale of your boat. We viewed it last year, but decided to go a different route. Sanderling is a nice boat, and we enjoyed meeting you and your wife! Scot K.