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Selling your boat.....


Cueball

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O.k........now that I am fully committed to selling my boat, I feel like nearly every inquiry is a potential scammer. Just wondering what some of you do to avoid B.S. interactions, how you collect payment, etc.

thanks for your input ahead of time!

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What pete said and only post your boat on Boat Trader or Only Inboards. Stay away from craigslist, that place is loaded with scammers! Another option is to consign your boat with your local dealer, they will usually charge 10% of sale price, but its less headache for you, they advertise, demo it, all you do is collect the payment when it is sold and you dont have to deal with all the tire kickers wanting to go for a free ride.

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I just sold my boat and it was relatively easy, I priced it competitivly on our local for sale website, had the buyer call me so I could talk to him,(you can usually tell when someone is full of sh..t or not), had him give me a deposit and ended up running it through our dealer for tax savings. Listed it and 4 hours later had it sold!!!

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The scammers are usually very easy to spot.

The ones that kill me are where they are so obviously a computer generated email, that they don't even mention that what you are selling is a boat...'Is the item still for sale' (repeat in your best middle eastern accent).

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What i've done in the past and for every boat purchase is I create a "buyers agreement" document. It has the vin of the boat and all pertinent information, selling price, personal information from the buyer and seller verified by personal ID's. On the day it comes to do the sale, they give me their personal check or whatever, and we sign all the paperwork and I verify their identification, etc. Everyone goes home with a copy of the buyers agreement, and they can drive away with my boat. However, I do *NOT* and never will sign the title over to them until their check clears. After the check clears (a week or so later) I sign the titles over to them and mail it to them. I've done it for every boat and vehicle I've sold with a vehicle being an exception because they happened to bank where I bank, and the guy walked in and created the cashiers check in front of my face (didn't show up with it) from the bank, he turned around and handed it to me and I deposited directly into my account. Since I saw the bank physically write the cashiers check, I didnt need to do the whole wait to sign the title thing. This is my advice as it should protect you from:

A) Someone giving you a phoney check / chasiers check / etc.

B) Someone claiming they paid you and filing ownership with the court (if you sign the title day of - they can claim they paid you and keep the boat even though you never got paid) - once you sign the title - you're screwed and have no leverage left.

This was how the seller sold me my first boat, I thought it was a good methodology and adopted it. You can easily find a sample buyers agreement by googling for one. You can simply adopt your own version in a word doc on 5 mins. Hope this helps, cheers.

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What i've done in the past and for every boat purchase is I create a "buyers agreement" document. It has the vin of the boat and all pertinent information, selling price, personal information from the buyer and seller verified by personal ID's. On the day it comes to do the sale, they give me their personal check or whatever, and we sign all the paperwork and I verify their identification, etc. Everyone goes home with a copy of the buyers agreement, and they can drive away with my boat. However, I do *NOT* and never will sign the title over to them until their check clears. After the check clears (a week or so later) I sign the titles over to them and mail it to them. I've done it for every boat and vehicle I've sold with a vehicle being an exception because they happened to bank where I bank, and the guy walked in and created the cashiers check in front of my face (didn't show up with it) from the bank, he turned around and handed it to me and I deposited directly into my account. Since I saw the bank physically write the cashiers check, I didnt need to do the whole wait to sign the title thing. This is my advice as it should protect you from:

A) Someone giving you a phoney check / chasiers check / etc.

B) Someone claiming they paid you and filing ownership with the court (if you sign the title day of - they can claim they paid you and keep the boat even though you never got paid) - once you sign the title - you're screwed and have no leverage left.

This was how the seller sold me my first boat, I thought it was a good methodology and adopted it. You can easily find a sample buyers agreement by googling for one. You can simply adopt your own version in a word doc on 5 mins. Hope this helps, cheers.

Thank you........that's exactly the type of info I was looking for.

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Another regional fyi...

In Texas, trailers under 4000 lbs (gross) are not typically titled. So, if you are buying a small boat (e.g. Response), trailer may not have title. Seems strange, but it saves you $50 bucks at trailer titling.

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With all the title issues in California we've read about here, I would never let the boat go until I had cash in hand.

I've bought & sold at least 3 boats, 4 ATVs, 2 trucks, a car, 3 motorcycles & who knows how many other items.... a lot of it on Craigslist. The scammers are ridiculously easy to spot & I just delete them.

If I ever had a boat ad go for more than a week or two, then I'd use Boattrader & OnlyInboards. And I do shop on those sites. You will definitely hear from buyers from further away too. But when I'm ready to sell something, I get it ready to sell (clean it, take pics of it), place an ad with all the relevant info & pics, and price it to sell. Not that I'm going to take a big loss, but I'll do the homework to know what price range my boat is worth, and then price it in the middle.

When it comes time to do the deal, I do it at the bank. No better place.

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No titles? Holy moly! That would make selling much more difficult. If that were the case I think things would get a lot harder. Since I'm so anal about being scammed I probably would only accept cash, or require them to send money to my bank and verify the funds and after the funds were verified only then could they take the boat. Or require them to become a member at my bank / credit union and have them create a chasier's check day of right in front of my face as I mentioned before (showing up with the cashiers check already wouldn't cut it - I can get some fancy paper and get a sample cashiers check from any bank for 5 bucks and EASILY create a real looking cashiers check which is why i would never accept a cashiers check even from my own bank unless it was written in front of my face).

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I use craigslist almost exclusivly to buy sell. Scammers are few and pretty easy to detect. I would only deal with someone face to face, not paypal and shipping companies. Again, it's really not hard to detect. I'll never buy a consigned boat from a dealer. First, I've never seen them competitively priced, second I want to know the owner a little bit. Why pay the middle man? Granted, I'm a bottom feeder dealing with older boats in the teens, not 30k and up...

I also take pictures of their license plate and drivers license. Cash or verified cashiers check.

BTW, I would never give someone a cashiers check and then wait for the title to be sent to me... I would just meet you at the bank to do the deal. Scams can go both ways.

Edited by Asmodeus2112
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Nice thing about consignment that some potential buyers would like, if they are a dealer,!they can purchase a warranty through them (depending on the dealer). A lot of people like the sound of dealer and warranty vs private party as is

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BTW, I would never give someone a cashiers check and then wait for the title to be sent to me... I would just meet you at the bank to do the deal. Scams can go both ways.

Which is why both parties have a signed buyers agreement with the vin and amount agreed upon for sale with a witnesses signature. If a person doesn't feel comfortable with a buyers agreement, I think you only have one option which is what you stated. Problem I've always had is I bought my first boat in missouri - no way im making that trip other than on the weekend and banks aren't open on the weekends. The second boat I bought was in vermont (I drove half way across the country for it. Same thing, banks wouldn't have even been open. I wouldn't be able to take a week off of work just so I can show up when a bank is open - so sometimes you need to give a little.

Jus sayin. What really are the *real* safe options out there? Someone pays cash? I dont exactly want to be walking around with (depending on the value of the boat) 10 - 75k. On my way to the bank i get in a car accident. I get held up. Heck the people who paid me literally wait for me to leave my house and jump me and steal it back - tons of places "I'd just get cash" doesn't work out. I'd like to hear what the absolute safest ways to do it is...

WIth that second boat we were going to wire my money bank to bank - that was a terrible idea. My banker informed me it might "take a while" but that's the option the seller wanted. We ended up waiting 4 hours and finally he just said he'd mail me the title when the money cleared. SO just for anyone else considering wiring money - it aint like in the movies where you just get money immediately. Bank to bank wiring is a SLOW process.

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Using a Dealer may also help with longer distance sales... I have bought a number of vehicles cross boarder and will wire money to the dealer and have the title sent to me before I cross over to get it... Private sale...no way I will wire money without setting sight on the boat and the titles. I bought our boat privately and have to admit it was the most painful of all my cross boarder purchases... although I was dealing with a piece of work on the other end... the dealer for me is a bit more consistant experience... surprisingly typically less BS

For me the dealer actually simplfies the sale when dealing over long distances

May be an option if you want to broaden the market.

Edited by G-Mack
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The tip I've heard for the ultra paranoid or those doing interstate sales is for the buyer to open an account at the seller's bank, and fund the account. Then when you are ready to close, it's just a transfer between accounts at the same bank which is much less painful than an interbank wire.

And fat chance walking away with a title if the boat is financed in every instance. It's not uncommon for say B of A to take a couple of weeks to get the title out and even then they will send it to the seller.

In the end there MUST be an element of trust.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I take a bit of heart that in the states I know of, this is a felony offense. If things seem weird, don't go forward. Pics of a valid license, license plates give me some piece of mind to mitigate the risk, but yes there is some risk. I've sold numerous cars, motorcycles and boats via craigslist, and no problems. I think that generally most people are good, but "trust but verify". If someone wants to buy and talk price before seeing the boat, screw that. I have traveled 8 hours or so to buy a boat. I talked to the buyer about the circumstances before leaving so that we would be clear about how the deal would work. I got a cashiers check for less than I was going to offer, and cash for the difference. That way I could negotiate buy not have thousands of dollars on me... I will admit that I have not bought or sold a vehicle that has a lien, and that does complicate it. In that case I can understand how a dealer could be useful as an intermediary. Still, having a signed bill of sale, possession of the boat, and documentation of the money paid you would be in a pretty safe position. But, after saying that the guy that bought my last boat told me a story that when he bought a boat the guy didn't have enough money to pay off the lien even with the money from the sale, and he had to go through a lot to get the title. Lesson there would be to ask to see paperwork on the lien to assess the payoff amount. It may be worth taking a Monday off for such a big transaction, IMO. You can make the check out to the lien holder, even if it is for more, and the bank will write a check for the excess to the other party. Egad, I've been drinking wine, so this has been a ramble, forgive me please...

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