Selling to foreign people

Hi everyone,

im trying to sell a topper boss on boatsandoutboards and appolloduck and have had a lot of interest with fellow countrymen along with guy from poland and someone from the czech republic, does anyone know how to tell if the foreign people are genuine? (not meaning to be in any way discriminatory of prejudice)

The polish person wanted me to take the boat to a south easterly harbour as we all drive on the wrong side of the road and he doesnt want to risk driving to the midlands?, he said he would cover the cost of fuel, this is all without even seeing the boat, but even so if he does not show up it is a long way to drive and a large amount of money wasted of diesel, so is there anyway to tell if people are genuine?)

 

Many thanks

 

George

There are a lot of scammers out there, so I'd be loathe to do that kind of distance without some kind of deposit..

I did sell my 4000 last week to some Italians, but the 4000 is a very active class in Italy, so it's not that unusual for Brits to sell there boats to Italians.  Altough as per JimC it normally happens after regattas. Plus it was only advertised on our class chat pages, so unlikely to be a classic scam

Now I'm not far from london and the buyers were coming to london for a long weekend so we arranged to meet - so they could look at the boat/sails - felt quite strange doing that in a British Rail car park - I certainly got a few weird stares from passers by. The buyers turned up and were super nice guys, and obviously sailors as they understood the kit, had regatta t-shirts on etc. We even joked about how the brits were going to kick ther butts at the olympics!!

They then paid me a good deposit (£600 quid) and they'd pulled a 'contract' together - not much just with name /address details, comitting to the sale, listing the equipment (as per the advert), and the balance due, so we signed that.

We'd previouisly discussed via email the mechanics of them collecting the boat - and on reflection we agreed to meet in calais - it's chuffing long way from Italy to London and they we're trying to do it in just a friday night to sunday routine..With £600 notes in my pocket I wasn't going to loose out financially even if they didn't turn up..and whilst it was going to take some time, shortly that won't be a problem for me.

So I manage to grab a saturday ferry at short notice (for less than £150) - get to calais, drive 1 miile in france away from ferryport to meeting point, and as I was a bit early and they a bit later I get me head down. 90 minutes later up they turn we load the boat onto their trailer (crazy italian trailer rules) - I take the cash and go home (due to other commitments I couldn't make a wwekend of it!)

i have a slight "oh sh1t" moment at customs...in france for no more than 3 hours, return with a big wad of cash.. but I think the odd damp bag of sailing kit hanging around in the back of the car helped put them off and then it was an hours quick drive home.

It really worked for me..but then they guys I was buying from were very genuine...











Edited by laser4000

get him to send you some cash first, say about half the cost of the fuel for your trip down and back, then just take this off the final transaction.  If he is a scam he'll go away, if not he should then turn up and pay up. 

Originally posted by Jamie600 I'd say go with your gut feeling.

The trouble is that professional scammers can be very very convincing - that's how they make their living...

Hi

Certainly  if I had  someone  interested and  they had to  come  as far as they say (there are a lot of Poles/Czech in the UK, so you never know if it's a scam), then I'd  probably meet them somewhere, but would  definitely  want the money in advance (for the boat and  my petrol costs). 

of interest: BOSS -  there was one I was  interested in in Scotland 2 years ago, but a chap from Norway beat me to it ! (I think he had it  shipped to Norway).