Recently been talking to a well known yacht broker in Pittwater regards a yacht they have advertised as excellent step aboard and go cruising .
This was exactly what we had been looking for a yacht ready to go and the desighn we had wanted, so rang the number and got a message to leave a message and they will get back as soon as possible.
Well just over a week later we got the call sorry been away over seas , (he is one of 4 sales people) two more phone calls we finally got the better resoultion photos they promised to send. by the way i chased them up three times not them me.
After looking at the photos i am shocked to see the 03 yanmar engine looks like a rusty old mooring block AND you could see bits of fan belt everywhere and this in there own words ready to go cruising.
We live interstate so the photos are a big part of our preperation to see if we are interested in spending money to come and have a look.
So back on the phone why didnt you tell us about the engine? as he did with all the things we found he came relitively clean over each thing we found as we found it in the photos, basicly destroying any trust we had installed in him.
As one well known broker has disappeared from Pittwater with his bad reputation you would think this one would have learnt but he has the monoply now it had a very good name but has now changed hands it seems.
After asking for photos of the other side of the motor which they supplied our negotiations ended we wanted a teaser price to get us on the plane he telling us there was nothing more he could do, these guys charge 10% of the purchase price in this case $7000 and the only effort on his part was to get the extra photos we asked for, i suppose its no skin of there nose they collect $300 a month for the mooring, i wonder what the owner of the yacht would have to say if they knew there was a geniune buyer trying to set a price so that they would fly down and take the next step in the buying process.
We all know boats are selling very slowly this could have been the sale he needed.

I dealt with a couple of brokers when I was in the market last year. One was in the Gold Coast and the other in Sydney.
I flew to the gold coast to look at a boat. They originally insisted I place a 10% deposit before they would submit an offer and i told them where they could go. Still I incurred the flight and accommodation costs and I went to look at the boat anyway. When I got there the presentation of the boat was appalling there was crap everywhere. There was someone living aboard and no effort had been made to clean or tidy. This was not a cheap boat as the price was getting toward 200K and they made no effort at all to present the boat for sale. I understand that this is the responsibility of the owner but you might think they would have had words with him prior. Needless to say the boat did not present like it did in the photographs with cracked bench tops amongst other things.
The dealings I had with the Sydney broker were exceptional, they organised everything to my timing given that I was travelling from WA.The service was helpful and friendly and they even gave me a lift back to Sydney airport from Newcastle.
They were like chalk and cheese and I would recommend the Sydney broker to anyone in the market for a boat.

Its only defamation, if its not true!!

I think in comparison to used boat stealers most car salesmen these days are way in front of the game. The used motorcar industry has been regulated into compliance whereas the used boat industry is still wide open to abuse and deception.