General help question

[SetofAces]

Hi guys,

Apologies if this should be in another topic/section.

I've been periodically struggling for money ever since I decided to go back to school a few years ago, but this year has taken the term "insolvent" and "broke as a joke" to a whole new level To make an epic story of betrayal and misery short, I started a business venture bankrolled by a line of credit extended by my grandmother, then ended up stuck around $20,000 when my partner (my "brother") screwed me and left me holding the bag, so to speak. Enough about that. This situation caused me to fall back on what I've been doing for the last few years, which is parting out cars and whatever else I can get my hands on. I already had some boat parts, but a buddy of mine that has been flipping old boats after fixing them up for a few years decided to clean out his garage, and let me buy him out on all of his boat parts to help expand my inventory for my eBay store. So I've got a bunch of Alpha One 4.3L and other parts.

I've already posted a bunch of the stuff on eBay, and I joined this forum to post in the classified section, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of a bigger boating/mercruiser forum and wouldn't mind pointing me in the right direction? Through much experience, I've found the largest/best forums for getting knowledge/advice/buying and selling parts for several different cars that I've had, but I'm rather new to the online boating community. Any advice would be most appreciated. Oh, and if you know anyone that needs 4.3 motor parts, I've got some good stuff, and I'm willing to let the majority of it go for cheap at the moment. I always set my starting prices below the cheapest that I can find on eBay (and offer discounts to anybody that buys from me outside of eBay), but at the moment I'm flat broke and can't even afford my textbooks (let alone a running vehicle/beater to get to class in ) so I'm willing to "take shorts" if I have to to raise some cash quickly.

Thanks for reading, any advice would be appreciated.

 

[guyjg]

Does Grandma know about your brother? Maybe she'll be kind to you and only charge you w/half of the debt and tell other grandson either he pays the other half of the debt or he has rec'd all the inheritance he is going to get.

The boating season is just beginning south of the equator. Stick w/eBay and Craigslist.

 

[SetofAces]

If only it were that easy. It's rather quite a bit complicated; he ran off at the mouth and told my entire family (plus friends, neighbors, random people he met at the bank/store/wherever that I straight-up stole the money. Incredibly bizarre. Half my family was so angry at me that they didn't even ask what the hell actually happened before condemning me. My grandma knows what's going on, but that still doesn't help her out with paying off so much debt. Getting the money out of my brother is NEVER going to happen. He moved one of my vintage dirtbikes out into the backyard during the rainy season and I didn't notice it for a month; the resulting damage destroyed over $1,000 worth of sellable parts. When I very calmly approached him about it, he started screaming at me, then backed me into a corner and started pushing me, trying to start a fight. This is how things have been. He's turned into a complete lunatic. After several more incidents like this, my fiancee had the bright idea of recording herself confronting him about some petty little matter -- he had disaggreed with her over whether or not she could keep her things in a certain location on the bathroom, and had flipped out and taken all of her stuff and put it in his room (we've been living here for over 4 years taking care of my mom, he just moved in with his trailer-trash girlfriend that has beat him up -- lol! -- half a dozen times or more; now he thinks he owns the house). We needed to leave, so she needed her things. She told me what she was doing (not about recording the conversation, though), and confronted him about her stuff while I mediated (or tried to). After 2-3minutes of him screaming at us as we calmly tried talking some reason into him, he finally flipped out when I told him that he could not order me around, and attacked me. I never raised a hand against him, but when he shoved me (hard) in the solar plexus I tried to move between him and my fiancee (who he was saying many F'd up things about, and saying that he wanted to punch her but would punch me instead). At this point he grabbed me and started choking me. a few minutes later, he told me to get up, and as soon as I dropped my guard to get up he resumed choking me, at this time unhindered. I struggled to shout out for help as I started to lost consciousness, then my fiancee (who was on the phone with the police at this point ) flipped out and jumped on him to try and get him off of me.

By the time all was said and done, I ended up not pressing charges; however, my brother was on the phone with other family members immediately, telling them that I had attacked him! He told everyone that he was merely defending himself against me! When word got out that there was a recording, he apparently convinced everyone so well that I was some sort of evil **** that everyone immediately condemned me AND my fiancee for "setting him up," and of course nobody actually cared to listen to the recording to see the truth!!!

Months later, I found out that he somehow convinced my mom -- who he basically ignored for the last 3-4 years, while she was in the hospital multiple times and nearly died on several occasions -- to name him sole-heir to her house. Apparently it was his intention from the start to see me ostracized from the family so that he could get the house and all my mother's assets for himself. I've never even talked to my mother (or my grandma) about any sort of inheritance, other than to say that it was my opinion that what -- if anything -- was left to my brothers and I should be split equally among us. It honestly struck me as bad taste to even be talking about the subject every time it was brought up.

I just guess you never really know some people . . . It continues to blow my mind, as I've put my life on hold at the drop of a hat more than once to bail out my brother, and this is how he repays me. What is even more amazing is that he's got not only half of the family but apparently somehow, even himself convinced that I'm just an evil person! However I think people are finally starting to realize that he's full of **** . . . for what good it does. My grandma still tells me how "wrong" of me it was to "set up" my brother . . . even though I didn't touch him, let alone know that there was a recording being made!

I didn't want to get into all this -- it still hurts very much to think about it -- but I find that once I start, it's hard to stop without telling the whole story. I've sold all of my running vehicles, missed countless opportunities to expand my store's inventory trying to keep up with these loan payments. I'm afraid this whole ordeal has set my life back for years, when all I was trying to do in the first place was make it a little easier on myself while I'm in school (make money so I could take out less in loans) and put a little money in my mom's pocket to help her fix up her house in case she is forced to sell. **** my life . . .

Anyways, sorry for the long story, and thanks for your response . . . If you're curious, I'm 26 and my brother is 31. Now THAT'S a shocker, eh? He acts like a spoiled 8-year-old every day, like I said it's quite bizarre. Another for-instance: my fiancee was bored, and doodled devil-horns on an advertisement. He starts going off to everyone as if she'd burned his baby photos! Or this: the other day, my mom was baking a cake to send my other brother for his birthday. Needing help peeling apples for the cake, she asked my fiancee (an under-employed college grad, did I mention that? I really am thinking that my brother is just insanely jealous of us for some reason) who agreed, but when my brother found out he raised hell! Whining and bawling, acting like an 8 year old! Things never cease to amaze me in this house; I'm starting to think that it's so incredibly weirdly fkd up that it'd be a good candidate for a reality-TV series.

I guess the moral of the story is, beyond "don't do business with relatives," or, "you really never know, EVER, who you can REALLY trust."