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Learning the hard way Boat Buying Lesson

S

sparky344

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"Well here's a lesson for

"Well here's a lesson for you all.

After agreeing on a purchase price for a 2001 model boat with a private seller this past Sunday (Feb-6) I sent said seller a deposit of $125.

Labelled on the check was "<Boat Make/Model> Deposit", the seller cashed the check and it cleared my bank yesterday (Feb-9).

The agreement was that I would buy the boat pending a water-test. If it didn't run as he claimed he could keep the deposit and use the money towards re-winterizing the boat.

The title was faxed to me this morning, I went to the bank with the title, got a bank draft in the sellers name and scheduled the pickup for tomorrow morning.

I received an email upon returning from the bank stating that regretfully he couldn't sell me the boat, and to call to discuss.

The seller had a listing on eBay for this boat while we were negotiating, he neglected to end the auction after accepting my offer. The eBay auction ended Feb-8 for $1600 higher than my offer and the seller decided he was returning my deposit and selling to the eBay bidder.

Maybe getting a signed receipt with associated VIN #'s could have prevented this? Nonetheless the boat search continues.

I welcome your comments and advice."
 
"At least the seller didn'

"At least the seller didn't give you a hard time with the deposit. I'll give him that much.
If you had a written contact, and he failed to hold up his end, you probably could have really made things difficult... maybe get him barred for life from ebay, but why? There's plenty of boats out there. And, in the process, you realized he's a lying POS. Gotta wonder what else he was hiding.
"caveat emptor""
 
That was a pretty unethical mo

That was a pretty unethical move on that guy's part but it wasn't a big rip off. I'd chalk it off to one of those CS things people sometimes do like cutting you off in traffic. I second what Troy said.
 
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