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Boat scam


wandering snail

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This on FB this evening:

Anyone able to help.. here's the full info
On the 19th November we agreed with a Tony Hudson to purchase a 36' black 1980's Springer narrow boat 'Hobsons Choice' G110498 advertised originally on Gumtree for quick sale at £3,500.00! We viewed the boat on the water just before Outwell at Gladys Dacks Public Staithe! We then motored with Tony Hudson and a friend called Gareth to a mooring directly opposite the Crown Lodge Inn! From then we parted with £4,450.00 for the purchase of Hobsons Choice, transportation, crane and delivery to its new dry home in Sussex! Arrival date 05th December!!!
No boat arrived and we have had no contact with Tony since. Subsequent contact with Gareth leads us to believe that the boat was heading towards Fox's boatyard March and that it may currently be moored near the Ship Inn at March. 
Please if anyone has any information at all regarding either the boat or persons involved would they be kind enough to contact both myself and the police! I have incident numbers with both the Sussex police and Actionfraud.
Many Thanks debbie harding 07889007888

 

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Sorry,can't help with this,but there is a useful thread on here entitled,

Bill Of Purchase and CRT Transfer Of Ownership.

Posted in  New To Boating  by leafofgrass on Dec 1.

 

Hope there has been a simple misunderstanding/mistake in your purchase.

"Hobsons Choice" at £3,500 sounds ridiculously cheap unless the engine is knackered/missing and the hull is full of rust holes!

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People who pull these sort of scams make straightforward mugging and robbery seem relatively honest!

They ought to be hung by the testicles from a low bridge with their head just in the water and not pulled out until they have said "sorry" 150 times!   

wandering snail,would you keep us informed as to what happens? it may help others.  

Edited by Mad Harold
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Whilst you always feel sympathy for anyone conned out of their hard earned money, words fail me when it is 90% 'self-inflicted'.

 

You meet a couple of total strangers in the middle of nowhere (not even at a mooring / marina) you hand over £4500 and say thanks a lot -see you in 3 weeks 200 miles away.

 

No mention of surveyor, seeing any boat documentation, proof of address, etc etc etc.

 

How about paying a deposit (say, sufficient to cover the transport) and pay the balance on arrival.

 

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13 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Whilst you always feel sympathy for anyone conned out of their hard earned money, words fail me when it is 90% 'self-inflicted'.

 

You meet a couple of total strangers in the middle of nowhere (not even at a mooring / marina) you hand over £4500 and say thanks a lot -see you in 3 weeks 200 miles away.

 

No mention of surveyor, seeing any boat documentation, proof of address, etc etc etc.

 

How about paying a deposit (say, sufficient to cover the transport) and pay the balance on arrival.

 

Apparently this was going to go into the purchaser's garden as guest accommodation (hence the "new, dry home" bit, I suppose).  I see your plight here Alan: it's relatively easy to be a bit sympathetic when a good idea turns bad, but when a bad idea goes downhill, it gets much harder not to mock. ;)

 

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On 10/12/2018 at 22:33, Troyboy said:

Where are you Athy ? Outwell is your stomping ground.

Indeed, and I am reading this thread with interest. I've passed through Outwell 3 or 4 times in the last week and have not seen the boat moored at the basin.It isn't on the staithe by Upwell church and it hasn't passed our house ( which it would do if it was heading for March) as far as I am aware. If it had been round the corner from Outwell basin towards Nordelph (the Crown Lodge hotel is on that stretch) we wouldn't have seen it - though we did go that way last Monday, come to think of it, and I didn't notice it. I do tend to notice "new" boats in the area as we get so few of them.

 

I'll be passing through March today and I'll keep my eyes open.

Edited by Athy
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7 minutes ago, MartynG said:

Perhaps Mr Hudson is very sick or dead ?

 

Or has gone on holiday with his latest pay packet.

 

In this day and age I really struggle with the concept that people are this stupid to just hand over a wedge of cash to a complete stranger.

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26 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

Or has gone on holiday with his latest pay packet.

 

In this day and age I really struggle with the concept that people are this stupid to just hand over a wedge of cash to a complete stranger.

How often do you personally know the person who sells you a car/telly/coat/case of beer etc?

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5 minutes ago, Athy said:

How often do you personally know the person who sells you a car/telly/coat/case of beer etc?

How often do you meet them in, say, a car park, hand over the money, drive off without the goods and hope they get delivered? ;)

 

Edited by Sea Dog
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56 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

In this day and age I really struggle with the concept that people are this stupid to just hand over a wedge of cash to a complete stranger.

 

24 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

How often do you meet them in, say, a car park, hand over the money, drive off without the goods and hope they get delivered?

 

My point Eggsactly - no 'mocking' its just so ridiculous.

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1 hour ago, Naughty Cal said:

Or has gone on holiday with his latest pay packet.

 

In this day and age I really struggle with the concept that people are this stupid to just hand over a wedge of cash to a complete stranger.

I must admit I’ve bought cars with no logbook that were too “cheap” not to, and a narrowboat from a very strange couple on the towpath in Hyde one evening. They did unearth some relevant paperwork eventually but as it was for sale for half what the engine was worth I’d have bought it anyway. 

It’s easy to get caught out though. I remember a tale from someone who dealt in vintage engines meeting a bloke in the middle of nowhere and giving him a hefty deposit for the lovely shiny engine in his boat.. 

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I have had several "lessons in life" like this, starting when I was young and naive. I've noticed the more insanely low the price, the more willing one is to suspend logical suspicions and trust the other party. I term this as "buying the price". One gets dazzled by the sheer good value on offer and I think this probably happened in this case. Sometimes even the other party had good intentions and possibly this happened in this case, which is why they seemed so credible. Only later when they realised they had the cash and the buyer had no way to trace them, did the idea of reneging on their commitment to deliver the boat, and the idea was just too tempting!

 

The one over-arching lesson I learned was that the more expensive one's mistake, the more effective the lesson one learns from the experience. The only thing one can take away from a loss like this is to consciously analyse what happened and work out how to avoid it happening again. It is trite and glib to laugh at them for handing over the money. I'd be far more interested to hear what was said to persuade them to be so trusting, but i don't suppose we ever will.  

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37 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

One gets dazzled by the sheer good value on offer and I think this probably happened in this case.

A few years back someone copied our logo and trading style and set up a site ‘selling’ electrical goods at about 2/3 the retail price.  A huge warning to potential customers should have been that the site insisted on bank transfer as being the only ‘safe’ way to pay for the goods. 

 

After a couple of phone calls from customers asking where their goods were I became aware of the site and instantly involved the police and inserted a disclaimer pop-up on our site explaining that we had nothing to do with the scammers. 

 

It continued to amaze me how many phone calls we received from gullible folk who were happy to transfer hundreds of pounds for a TV or washing machine, thinking nothing was amiss. 

 

Eventually the site was shut down. I wasn’t told if the perpetrators were ever found. 

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5 minutes ago, WotEver said:

A few years back someone copied our logo and trading style and set up a site ‘selling’ electrical goods at about 2/3 the retail price.  A huge warning to potential customers should have been that the site insisted on bank transfer as being the only ‘safe’ way to pay for the goods. 

 

After a couple of phone calls from customers asking where their goods were I became aware of the site and instantly involved the police and inserted a disclaimer pop-up on our site explaining that we had nothing to do with the scammers. 

 

It continued to amaze me how many phone calls we received from gullible folk who were happy to transfer hundreds of pounds for a TV or washing machine, thinking nothing was amiss. 

 

Eventually the site was shut down. I wasn’t told if the perpetrators were ever found. 

 

Curiously I have similar experience from the other end of the telescope. Sometimes if I get a bad feeling about a potential customer I ask for payment in full up front, before I visit their rented house in the back end of nowhere to fix the boiler. Sometimes these people amaze me by agreeing and paying me a large sum of money by debit card over the phone. I then go and fix it as promised but they leave themselves wide open to me just keeping the money. Especially when they live far away abroad. 

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6 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Curiously I have similar experience from the other end of the telescope. Sometimes if I get a bad feeling about a potential customer I ask for payment in full up front, before I visit their rented house in the back end of nowhere to fix the boiler. Sometimes these people amaze me by agreeing and paying me a large sum of money by debit card over the phone. I then go and fix it as promised but they leave themselves wide open to me just keeping the money. Especially when they live far away abroad. 

That's because you come over as very trustworthy, but then so do con men :detective:

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1 minute ago, ditchcrawler said:

That's because you come over as very trustworthy, but then so do con men :detective:

 

A subtle point I was trying to make earlier is sometimes the con man didn't initially set out and intend to con, they just find themselves after the deal in a position to renege and suddenly recognise this fact.

 

Just as I am once paid for the repair I could renege, possibly the boat seller realised they could too, after they walked away with the money for their boat, still in possession of the boat.

 

The idea can come after the deal was completed. That was my point. The seller comes across  as totally genuine because at the point of sale they ARE totally genuine in their intentions. Its only later they change their mind, in the face of temptation themselves.  

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Athy said:

How often do you personally know the person who sells you a car/telly/coat/case of beer etc?

Very few times. But we tend to buy those items in a reputable shop and get a reciept for the purchase. not by the riverside with no proof of any money ever having changed hands!

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