CONSUMER PROTECTION
theadvocate
Don’t Get Lured Into A Deal That’s Too Good
— By Caroline Ajootian
Two boat-buying deals that seemed fine at first, then turned a little
fishy. Read these cautionary tales, so the same never happens to you
wo marine surveyors recently
reported to BoatU.S. that clients
of theirs had been duped by the
same online boat-buying scam.
In both cases, the would-be
buyers paid $22,000 to a bogus
escrow company for boats that didn’t exist.
In retrospect, red flags and the distinct
odor of rotten fish marked every aspect of
both deals described by the surveyors. But,
said one of the scam victims, a New York
man who hoped to share the joys of fishing
and boating with his young child, “I wanted to believe [the deal] was a great way to
buy a boat. I ignored the warning signs.”
T
In the first case, the New York buyer
found a 2005 Hydra-Sports 2400 for sale
in Pacifica, California, on one of the major
online boat-listing sites. He looked at pictures posted on the photo-sharing site
Photobucket and had several phone conversations and exchanged e-mail with a
Seattle man who purported to be the seller.
“The seller sounded like he was at least
55 years old and had an Eastern European
accent. He told me he owned a diner in
Pacifica and had just bought another one
in Seattle,” the buyer said. “The asking
price was $22,000, much less than what
the same model was selling for elsewhere.”
The BoatU.S. Value Check service
places fair market value for the 2005
Hydra-Sports 2400 at $35,000 to $38,000.
According to the buyer, “When I asked
about the low price, the seller said the boat
had been given to him as a wedding pres-
ent, so how much he sold it for wasn’t very
important.”
The buyer hired a marine surveyor
and a mechanic to inspect the boat and its
Yamaha engine. The seller suggested two
locations for the sea trial, both of which
turned out to be reservoirs that didn’t
allow powerboats.
“Fishy! Bells and whistles went off!”
the Alameda surveyor told BoatU.S.,
because the seller of the boat claimed to
be very familiar with the area. “I told my
client to be especially careful about turn-
ing over money to the seller. However, the
buyer informed me that the money would
be held by an escrow company pending
the sale,” the surveyor said. “He thought
he was being careful.”
The marine mechanic hired to inspect
the Yamaha engine asked the seller for
model information, so that he could check
service records. Immediately, another red
flag went up because the seller “hemmed
and hawed,” according to the New York
buyer, and eventually said he didn’t have
his ownership papers handy. At this point,
both the surveyor and the mechanic cau-
tioned the buyer that details of the sale
just didn’t add up. But the New York buyer
admits he ignored their warnings. “There
were things I should’ve seen, but they just
didn’t register. I filled in the pieces myself
to make things work.”
The buyer said the seller steered him
to place payment for the boat with an
online escrow company called AOL Money
& Finance. “Everything was about the
escrow,” the buyer said. “The seller told me
AOL Money & Finance was like PayPal, so
I assumed it was legit and wire-transferred
the money. I trusted the company because
it mentioned AOL.” AOL offers informa-
tion and news about financial matters on
its site, but does not provide an escrow ser-
vice or any other money-handling service.
On the day the boat and engine
PHO TO BY PAT FORD
AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2011
