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Last week there was this 18 Outrage on eBay and as you can see in the listing the seller claims he was listing it for another person (a little wierd). As soon as it came up on ebay I wrote the lister asking to speak with the owner as I would be willing to purchase the boat outright. I got a call from someone who claimed to be the owner. I ask a load of the usual questions and a couple got answers that did not match. 1. The stencil number given did not relate to an 18 but hey it could has been written down wrong however the HIN seemed right. 2. The trailer was sold as the same vintage as the whaler but it is at least a 1999 trailer in the pictures. I told the owner I would be willing to give between 10.5 and 11k for the boat but wanted to see it in person. I also told him I had cash in hand and was supposed to be going to look at a 17 in Ohio that I had a deposit on. So I was most likely going be buying a boat on Sunday and if we could come to an agreement I would be willing to lose the deposit on the 17 and make the 20 plus round trip on Sunday to be there and look at the boat and make payment in cash. I hoped the cash offer would get his interest as he stated he was selling the boat to pay off some Tax issues he had. He told me at the time that the reserve was 12 and would take his chances with someone else bringing more than my offer. So I just left it at that as I was a bit put off by the seller and I had a bit of an unsure feeling about the listing. Mainly because of the misinformation and the listing person having a lot of feedback for selling magazines. After the call I noticed that the 18 was registered in Indiana but the boat was listed as being in Wisconsin. With that I did not bid on the auction.
But there was something else that the seller stated on the call that I had forgotten till now. I said on the call it looked like there were a couple other whalers in the storage barn (at least three in the listing images) and he said that there was no other whalers in the storage unit. Then today I found this V-20 Outrage which you can see the bow of in the first picture of the 18 listing. And in the listing for the 20 you can see the same boats around, even the lower unit of the 18, so it clearly is in the same storage unit as the 18 but this 20 is listed by a completely different user. Also even though both of these whalers are in the same sotrage unit the 18 is registered in Indiana, and the 20 is registered in Michigan but both are being listed as in the Door County Area of Wisconsin. To much of a coincidence for me. I am now wondering if the 18 was a real listing, and now the 20 as well. Could someone have gone into a storage unit at a marina and started taking pictures of whalers for fake eBay listings?
I was wondering if anyone here on the board also spoke with the owner of the 18 and what the story was that they got. Also did some here actually win the auction or know the person who won?
Edited by Jeff on 12/05/07 - 7:11 PM
1993 23' Walkaround Whaler Drive
I looked at the pictures from your post and I think it is odd that all the pics are shot in the dark with only the camera flash for illumination. It would seem that a legitimate owner of that boat, would take the pictures by day, but who knows, people do strange things.
Jeff, I have done a lot of tranactions on EBAY and this one does throw up some flags. He's only had 14 transactions and most have been private with no details. He's keeping BUyer's ID private in this transaction also. However, he does ask for payment in person and not asking for a lot of money up from so that makes it appear to be legit. I agree with you though, something smells somewhere with this deal. This one will be interesting to follow
I live in Door County and neither of these boats look familiar. It is highly possible that one or both of the boats belong to someone who lives out of town, but stores their boat in Door County. I always keep an eye on whalers around the county but these two I have not seen.
A photo of my 15 was used on EBAY by someone. I contacted the guy and he claimed that he was overseas, had no one that could take a photo for him and his boat was exactly like mine. Shortly after that it was taken off auction............who knows!
