Found my Boat for Sale on Boats and Outboard...Help!

[Vandad]

Folks, I was just browsing the net and found my own boat advertised on Boatsandoutboards for sale. The pictures are from the advert which the previous legitimate owner that I bought the boat from (back in December 2011).

What Shall I do? I have contacted the admin of Boatsandoutboardsforsale, and have reported the Advert to them...

Do I need to take any other action?

[actions]

I found mine on there a while ago. Just send the admin team an email. That's what i did and it got removed. Trouble is you know someone will fall foul of it. Anything us honest folk can do to help can only be a good thing.

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by Vandad

Folks, I was just browsing the net and found my own boat advertised on Boatsandoutboards for sale. The pictures are from the advert which the previous legitimate owner that I bought the boat from (back in December 2011).

What Shall I do? I have contacted the admin of Boatsandoutboardsforsale, and have reported the Advert to them...

Do I need to take any other action?

How much do they want for it? Make them a bid

[Johnscubanut]

I saw an outfit advertised on there several months ago. Avon searider 5.5m (5.4m should be) with 90 mariner 2t. Ist advertised as in essex, then Hampshire? A few e-mails back & forth between us & they reckoned it was in Berlin!! Said they would ship it to uk for NO CHARGE!!!!! Woman said Hubby worked for Luftansa airline!!! LOL
I've rung boats&outboards twice now & both times they've taken it off the advertising but can't track the' seller' as they use different pc's?
Buyer beware!!!!

[Festinghouse]

mine was still on there 18months after i bought it, i told the bloke i bought it off and he was still being contacted about it - turns out he was unable to remove the advert even though he had contacted the admin team a number of times. not sure if its still there or not.

[Simon666]

Originally Posted by Johnscubanut

I saw an outfit advertised on there several months ago. Avon searider 5.5m (5.4m should be) with 90 mariner 2t. Ist advertised as in essex, then Hampshire? A few e-mails back & forth between us & they reckoned it was in Berlin!! Said they would ship it to uk for NO CHARGE!!!!! Woman said Hubby worked for Luftansa airline!!! LOL
I've rung boats&outboards twice now & both times they've taken it off the advertising but can't track the' seller' as they use different pc's?
Buyer beware!!!!

Ha! i responded to the same advert. All details the same except she very kindly was shipping it from spain.

I thought i would have a little fun and dragged the emails on for ages, then gave her a fake address for delivery. She sent me the bank account details for payment. I told her i sent payment the same day which really confused them as they hadnt received payment.

Then i got bored and emailed all the info and bank account details to the police fraud office!

[Anchorhandler]

Very slightly off topic but still of a similar theme only vehicles and not boats...

I still regularly copy photo's of vehicles/plant for sale in the UK and advertise them over here in France on specialist sites.

If i get enough interest at the price listed in France (generally speaking plant, tractors and some types of vehicles are much more expensive in France) then i buy the vehicle in the UK and bring it over for what is almost a guaranteed sale.

Bit cheeky i know and i've often wondered what the reaction would be if the owner of the vehicle in the UK happened somehow to stumble across the advert over here on the continent ::-):

I don't think there has been an instance yet where i haven't ended up buying whatever it was i was advertising though so the owner in the UK has benefited from a lot of free advertising resulting in a sale.

Simon

[Boats&Outboards]

I've just had a chat with admin at B/O (as you know this site nothing to do with us at Boatsandoutboards4sale) regarding a different subject but this issue came up.

Apparently they are part of a larger group of website owners including autotrader, ApolloDuck etc trying to combat this issue. They say they have a team of 20 people dedicated to trying to route out the scams but freely stated its a sign of the times that so many scams are present and it's impossible to prevent. They also claim to remove any reported advert which is shown to be a scam. In fairness they've always removed the ones we have reported too.

I guess thats about the best we can hope for.

Peter @ Boatsandoutboards4sale ~ askboatsandoutboards4sale@sky.com ~ 07930 421007

[willk]

Originally Posted by Boats&Outboards

I guess thats about the best we can hope for.

Hmmm. I'm sure that they could do a lot more if the will was there. If they charged a nominal sum to a verified Paypal account it would put off quite a few of the chancers. Ensuring that the IP address of the vendor was in the country where the sale was taking place might be an option too. Have you encountered many fraudulent ads on Apolloduck? I haven't seen any obvious ones and their Irish site seems to be very well managed. Donedeal is another pay to advertise site that seems to work quite well, although it's a bit "country"

[Channel Ribs]

Originally Posted by Boats&Outboards

They say they have a team of 20 people dedicated to trying to route out the scams.... it's impossible to prevent.

I do not think either statement is true.

It is in their interests to have as many ads as possible, they do not really care how many are legit.

[Boats&Outboards]

I'm not saying its acceptable or I agree with them. Just what they stated. I do not agree its in their interests to have as many ads as possible though. The scams do not have active phone numbers for a start, so they make no money from it. Plus the more fake ads they leave running the more people leave the site having been conned.

Look at it from their side. They offer free adverts to all. Is it for them to decide what's so cheap it must be a scam ? How would you feel if they pulled your genuine advert because they thought it was too cheap ?

The only way to combat it is to charge for adverts but even then whose to say the scammers won't pay a few quid to gain your trust...

Yes I've seen lots of scams on other sites. Granted the B/O site is by far the worst I've seen but then again it's the biggest boating sales site in the UK so it would be.

Peter @ Boatsandoutboards4sale ~ askboatsandoutboards4sale@sky.com ~ 07930 421007

[Poly]

Not wanting to tempt fate Pete, but we offer free ads on here and without any full time staff (although willk is close!) get very little spam or as far as I know scams. There are automated tools which could be developed or adapted to help identify risk of scam and then enable moderation, without every ad needing approved, and similarly to block ip addresses of known scammers. I'm not sure if they are deliberately complicit or just naive but am its surely only a matter of time till someone steals there market by offering a well designed site that is full of useful and relevant content.