This is a review of my POP Yachts experience. Here is the story, as I experienced it, of the sale of my 1965 Boston Whaler on January 26th of this year, through POP Yachts. On January 11th of this year, I received a call from an “unknown caller”, claiming to be a POP Yachts representative, who said he had an offer for my boat from a potential buyer. The offer was too low for me to accept, but I left the door open for further discussion. The next night I received a follow up call, again from an “unknown caller”, who said the same potential buyer had upped their offer to close to my current asking price, and I verbally accepted that offer, still wondering if it was real. (Unregistered cell phones ID themselves as “unknown caller” on caller ID, and are frequently used in illegal deals. This always makes me cautious.) The next day I received an email “introducing” my new listing representative, instructing me that he would be in touch soon to photograph and document my boat. Since I already had a listing representative for several months, this set off alarm bells for me. My original representative was very thorough and I felt she had done an exemplary job photographing my boat and building the listing on the POP Yachts website. She sent weekly emails, or set up automatic emails, that informed me of the activity on my boat, as well as naming anyone who had expressed an interest in my boat, who were therefore to be treated as “protected buyers”. My interactions with my original representative was excellent. I was very satisfied with her service. (Why wasn’t I hearing from her, I wondered? Three days ago she was still my rep and still sending me emails. Was she suddenly no longer with POP Yachts, or was she being cut out of the sale? What a coincidence if she was no longer with POP Yachts, just when a legitimate sale seemed imminent, I thought.) So I tried to email her, using POP Yachts email. That email was intercepted. I never was able to contact my original rep. (What was going on, I asked myself? Was this a legitimate offer to buy? Had someone hacked into the POP Yachts website and was using the information there to impersonate POP Yachts? Was this a ‘bait and switch’ scam, or some other type of scam, like other internet-based scams I have read about?) Subsequently I heard from several persons – a “Senior Closing Coordinator”; a buyer’s representative; a representative who claimed to want to be contacted if I had any reason to be unsatisfied with any aspect of the POP Yachts process; and many other individuals – all allegedly POP Yachts personnel, each supposedly with some role that they claimed they would play in the sale of my boat. All tolled, eight different people, 28 emails, an uncounted number of phone calls – WOW, all these POP Yachts people. It takes a village? (I recognized this as a common feature of scams. Lots of different people, with vague responsibilities, each referring you to some other person if you question anything.) Eventually, I received an email with a purchase and sale agreement attached, instructing me to electronically sign and return it, which I did. (I reasoned that no harm could come from signing this document, especially since I had been crystal clear in my phone conversations that I would not release the boat without receipt of certified funds at the time of the closing and passing of papers. “No funds, no sale”.) Trouble arose when I received another email, this one from a “Senior Closing Coordinator”, with a set of documents for me to sign, some of which I had to get notarized, and return “immediately”. (Don’t read, just rush out and get this done? “We sell thousands of boats this way – don’t worry” says the voice on the phone. Which just makes me worry more.) As I carefully read through the documents, I saw that there were problems for me with some of the documents. The Bill of Sale document did not have the buyer as a signatory, and, if I signed, would confirm that I had received funds for the boat and a trailer – this had not happened. Power of Attorney documents would have me name two additional completely unknown (to me) persons as “attorney-in-fact” for the purposes of … just about anything relating to a “motor vehicle, mobile home, or vessel”, and that the power of attorney permitted “whatever my said attorney-in-fact may lawfully do or cause to be done” – scary powers to give to strangers. An Authorization to Disburse Proceeds document requested my Bank Name, Account Number, and Routing Number, or instead, that I authorize that the disbursed funds would be sent to me by check days after the closing, this without even requesting the address of where to send the check. (“Your check is in the mail” scam? I recognized that documents that took away protections for a seller, put a seller at risk, and the urgency to respond, were all features of documented scams.) I replied to the “Senior Closing Coordinator” that I needed a bill of sale, signed by both the buyer AND the seller; that I didn’t feel I could sign a document that asserted I had received funds when I had not; that I would never give my banking information to complete strangers; and that to give power of attorney to named, but unknown persons, for vague, broad uses, is to invite all manner of financial disaster. The “Senior Closing Coordinator’s” answer to me claimed that without all the documents, the sale could not go forward. I replied back that while the potential buyer was willing to inspect the boat – that I was willing to make arrangements with the boat yard where the boat was stored – no sale would be consummated without the receipt of a certified bank check at the time of the passing of papers (the actual closing). This impasse was resolved by a subsequent phone call with one more POP Yachts representative. I was able to negotiate that I would not have to sign a power of attorney; I could create my own Bill of Sale that the buyer would sign at the closing; the funds would be disbursed at the time of closing and would be in the form of a certified bank check; and I would sign, but not provide until the actual closing, the signed and notarized POP Yachts Bill of Sale documents – provided the sale actually occurred. When I took the POP Yachts documents and emails to my lawyer and my banker, they advised me NOT to go forward with the proposed sale – to play it safe. The bait-and-switch from my original representative to a stranger; the sudden unavailability to contact my original representative once there was an actual buyer; the host of representatives, each with separate roles, messages, and agendas; the demand for signed and notarized documents that not only provided no protection for a seller, but actually put a seller at great potential risk; the false promise to bring a certified bank check to the closing – all this and more, dissuades me from ever recommending POP Yachts. Eventually a date and time was proposed for the inspection and closing, but that soon got cancelled, and an addendum to the purchase and sale document was emailed, which established a new deadline for the purchase and sale agreement to be binding. Phone conversations with various POP Yachts personnel set a tentative date for the inspection and possible closing (but never a time), and nothing was ever confirmed until after the potential buyer was on the road, on her way to see the boat. The night before the closing a POP Yacht representative called, mildly frantic, and told me if I wasn’t going to go forward with the sale, I should tell him, as the buyer was going to “drive up the next morning”. I knew the buyer faced a 14 hour drive, through two of the worst urban areas through which to drive, and as it turned out, the buyer had already left, choosing wisely to make the drive in two days. I never understood the purpose for that particular lie from the POP Yachts representative. At the closing, no certified bank check was presented for the distribution of funds – and no explanation for this was provided. Instead the POP Yachts representative presented me with a smirk and a “moneygram”. He knew he was not delivering on what was promised me. In spite of all the dogmatic processes and procedures and the involvement and duplicity of the many POP Yachts personnel, the buyer DID show up, the boat WAS ready for inspection, and the sale WAS closed on the spot. So many of the POP Yachts processes and procedures are textbook features of scams, that no informed person could fail to notice the similarity. All it would have taken to complete a successful scam to defraud me, would have been a straw buyer and a bogus check for me at the closing. It would have had the faux legitimacy that the signed, notarized documents would have provided. And, in fact, the disbursement of funds DID occur in a form often used by scammers – “moneygrams”. I have never dealt with any sales organization that operated in a more suspicious, duplicitous, underhanded manner. POP Yachts personnel were condescending, demanding, and too often either ill-informed or intentionally misleading to be credible. The POP Yachts experience was a very stressful, frustrating, and unprofessional experience, at least for this seller. I give POP Yachts a MINUS five-star rating. Paul Cully