I had a similar experience as the gentleman from Canada. I had first contacted Dependable Auto Service, as they did a nice job of transporting my two trucks. Although they advertise marine transport on their web site, they couldn't do it because I don't have a trailer for my 25' sailboat. They recommended Hays. Since DAS is a reputable company, I took it for granted that Hays was too. Big mistake.
I bought the boat on eBay in February. Before I made the winning bid I call Hays to see what it would cost to transport the boat from Dana Point to San Francisco. He said about $2500, which seemed reasonable. I talked to Jim Hay a couple of times in March. He told me he had a truck coming to southern California, where the boat is still moored, in a couple of weeks. He also dropped the price to $2200 since the boat was not oversized. We agreed on a 3-day window at the end of March as I needed to have my boat out of the slip by then.
He wanted me to wire the $500 deposit to close the deal and firm up the schedule. I sent the money. As the pickup date drew near I tried calling Jim Hay repeatedly and all I got was either a busy signal or an answering machine. Leaving messages and writing emails was fruitless. He never EVER replies to either. The end of March came and went and I never heard from him I must have called him hundreds of times over the next few weeks.
The lady I bought the boat from was nice enough to let me rent the slip for one more month. After another couple of hundred calls I finally got him again. He said he was "working on it" and that all the trucks were on the east coast and nobody wanted to come to the west coast because of fuel prices. A few weeks went by, then I had to move my boat out of the slip at the end of March. This meant I had to move it to vacant slips or pay for a guest slip. Then I was able to rent a month-to-month slip. This was starting to get expensive.
Another couple hundred phone calls and I get a hold of Hays. This was April 25th. I said I was cancelling the deal, he said he didn't blame me. A asked about the deposit, he said he'd send me a check. At this point that didn't sound like a good idea, so he agreed to wire it. That was two weeks ago and still no deposit.
Since I'm attorney I'll be filing a civil suit, but I doubt even then I would see the deposit. But AH-HA! Since the transaction occurred across state lines over the internet I can file charges with the federal prosecutors office under federal internet fraud statutes. I'll keep you posted.
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