Avoiding Boat-Buying Scams: Fake Listings, Fake Escrow, Overpayment Checks and Safe Payment

BoatUS lists these as the ones in wide use:

• Overpayment check (targets sellers). A "buyer" offers to pay with a cashier's check or bank draft, then sends one for much more than the price with a story about why. You're asked to deposit it and send part of the money to someone else, often a "shipping company." The check is fake.
• Fake payment notice (targets sellers). The buyer asks for your PayPal or other payment ID, then you get a realistic-looking email "confirming" a payment for more than the price, and a request to forward the extra to a shipper. No money ever arrived.
• Fake escrow (targets buyers). The seller of a cheap, beautiful boat insists on an escrow company with a professional website. You wire the money, and the boat, the seller and the website disappear.

A common variation owners ask about online: the "seller" offers to ship the boat to you for a few days' "inspection period," with your money held by a "secure trading agent" and refunded if you don't like it. There is no agent and no boat; it's the fake-escrow scam with a friendlier story.

Fake listings usually show a boat priced well below similar ones, with lots of good photos and a strong description. BoatUS notes the photos and text are often copied from a real ad and the boat doesn't exist. Before you fall in love:

• Compare the price with several similar boats on the market.
• Search the photos and a sentence of the description online. If the same boat appears in another city or with another seller, walk away.
• Ask for one new photo you choose, such as the HIN plate next to today's newspaper or a sheet of paper with your name on it.

BoatUS says one of these is a warning, and two or three together mean high alert:

• Vague words like "the item" or "your merchandise" instead of the boat's name
• A seller or buyer who won't talk on the phone, often "overseas," "deployed" or "at sea"
• No interest in seeing the boat, negotiating the price or getting a survey
• A buyer happy to take the boat "as is," sight unseen, after a few emails
• Email addresses with long strings of numbers, or that change mid-conversation
• A person who forgets who they are, where the boat is, or what they're buying
• Insistence on one specific escrow or shipping company, with no alternative allowed
• Any mention of paying more than the agreed price
• No interest in the title, the registration or the hull ID number

Discover Boating also suggests a phone call rather than an email back-and-forth, which is easier for a scammer to fake.

Never buy a boat unseen. If it's far away, BoatUS recommends sending a local accredited marine surveyor, or someone you trust, to confirm the boat is real and the seller holds the actual title and registration before any money moves. Choose and pay that person yourself; don't use someone the seller recommends. Our buying-out-of-state guide covers remote inspections in more detail.

• Ask the seller to show a photo ID and the original title (or Coast Guard documentation, or registration in states that don't title boats). The names must match.
• If someone else is on the title (a spouse, a business, an estate), ask how they have authority to sell and check what proof your state accepts.
• Ask for the seller's own bill of sale from when they bought it, especially in registration-only states.
• Search the title and registration with the state agency, as BoatUS suggests, to confirm the owner and any recorded liens.

The Coast Guard points out that changing even one character of a HIN gives the boat a different identity. Find the HIN on the starboard side of the transom and check that it matches the title, the registration and any insurance records, character by character. On a modern 12-character HIN, federal rules (33 CFR 181.25) don't allow the letters I, O or Q in the serial-number part, and the ninth character is a letter for the month; a number that breaks the pattern deserves a closer look. A missing, ground-off or patched HIN is a stop sign; see our state-assigned HIN guide for what a legitimate fix looks like. Ask your state agency or insurer whether they can check the HIN against stolen-vessel records.

Escrow can protect both sides, but only a real one.

• Never use an escrow company the other side insists on. BoatUS suggests proposing your own after checking it with the Better Business Bureau. As the National Insurance Crime Bureau explained to BoatUS, an "escrow account" that the seller set up and controls is not escrow at all; a real one is held by an independent attorney, broker or closing company that answers to state or industry regulators and professional licensing rules.
• BoatUS (2025) notes escrow and closing services are offered by many law offices and by title and documentation companies, and that you should pick one both sides trust (not, for example, the seller's family lawyer).
• Look up the company's phone number yourself, from a source you trust, and call it. Don't use the number or link in the seller's email.
• Be suspicious of a brand-new website, a free email address, or a company that only takes wires or cryptocurrency.
• If the boat is federally documented, remember BoatUS's other warning: private documentation websites can look like the official Coast Guard site and charge far more. They aren't escrow services and they can't issue documentation.

Fake shipping companies are part of many scams, and real ones vary a lot. BoatUS advises asking any transporter for its U.S. DOT operating authority and its cargo insurance, and checking its status on the DOT's online carrier lookup. That lookup is the FMCSA's free SAFER Company Snapshot: search by USDOT number, MC number or company name, and make sure the name and address match the company you're dealing with and that it isn't listed as out of service. A reluctant answer is reason enough to look elsewhere. BoatUS also warns that bid websites don't verify the claims of the truckers who bid. Hire the shipper yourself; don't let the other party "arrange everything."

• Pay only when you have the original signed title (or documentation bill of sale), a signed bill of sale and any lien release in hand, or through a closing service you chose.
• Use a traceable method: a wire to a verified escrow or closing account, or a cashier's check you get from your own bank and hand over at the agency office or the lender.
• Never pay with gift cards or cryptocurrency, and never wire money to a private person you haven't met. The FTC says those payments are almost impossible to get back.
• Be wary of last-minute "new wiring instructions" by email. Confirm any change by calling a number you already know.

• Don't accept a check for more than the price. The FTC says plainly: there's no legitimate reason for that.
• A deposited check can look "cleared" and still bounce. The FTC explains that banks must make funds available quickly, but it can take weeks to discover a fake, and you owe the bank whatever it credited you.
• Ignore payment "confirmation" emails. Log in to your own account directly to see whether money arrived.
• Know the seller-side script. BoatUS writer Lenny Rudow got five near-identical emails when he sold his own boat: questions the listing already answered ("are you the original owner?"), a promise to pay by cashier's check, and a "mover" who would collect the boat after the check cleared, all without the buyer ever seeing it. Asking for a full name and address, or a photo of a driver's license, ended most of them.
• If you do get a check, check it before you trust it. BoatUS suggests confirming the routing number has nine digits and belongs to the bank named on the check, that the bank's address is real, and calling the bank on a number you looked up yourself, never the one printed on the check.
• Hand over the boat, title and keys only after the funds are truly in your account, or at the buyer's bank or a closing you trust. The FTC suggests an escrow or online payment service when selling a vehicle online, as long as you choose it.

• Call your bank right away. Ask for the wire to be recalled or the payment stopped. If you used a wire service, call that company.
• Match the call to how you paid. The FTC's "What To Do if You Were Scammed" page says: for a wire company such as Western Union or MoneyGram, report it immediately, say a scammer tricked you and ask for a refund; for a bank-app transfer, ask your bank to reverse it; for a gift card, call the issuer using the number on the card and keep the card and receipt; for cryptocurrency, contact the exchange or ATM operator, knowing recovery is hard.
• Report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The FTC also lists the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and your state Attorney General.
• File a police report and tell the website where the ad ran.
• Keep every email, text, ad screenshot and receipt.
• Beware of "recovery" services that promise to get your money back for a fee. The IC3 says it does not work with private companies to recover funds and will never contact you asking for money.