Music to my Ears
Conducting Beautiful Music
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- Nov 18, 2007
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My check has finally cleared so I thought that I could now share my story with the sale of my boat through OCM to all of you. I'm sure many of you have wondered why I have been silent on this matter for the past week or so. I felt the need to do so until I knew the funds had cleared. I will let you all decide whether or not my dealings with OCM were handled in a professional manor, and in a manor that any of us as customers of OCM would want to be treated. I'm sure many others have waited much longer for their payoff than myself, and there are probably more that wait in the wings. I pull for you!
Let me start by saying that OCM was not my first choice for a broker. I really wanted to list with Maxed Out Marine. I spoke with Ricky and Paul and have a great deal of respect for both of them. The ONLY reason I didn't list with them is that they had no storage place for my boat during the sales process.
So, I took my Nordic Heat to OCM a couple days prior to the Desert Storm weekend, @April 21-26th. I told Tim that I wanted to net 40k out of the sale, which he felt was fair. We agreed that the asking price was going to be I believe 45 or so thousand, to include his 10% fee and a little negotiating room. (I don't remember the exact asking price anymore). When it went up on his website, it was listed at 49k. I immediately called him and asked why the price had been increased. He said his web page guy made a mistake. It took several calls over the next week and a half before it was lowered. Honest mistake? Maybe so.*
So we'll jump to July 28th. Tim notified me that he was selling my boat to Dennis, one of his co-workers. He had told me for a couple weeks prior that Dennis was interested in helping to purchase my boat for his daughter, son in law and family. I asked him when I should expect payment from the sale. He said that I should see it in a week or so. Up to that point, I hadn't sent Tim ANY of my title or registration paperwork. I simply didn't feel comfortable doing so. With the sale to one of his employees, I then felt the sale would go through smoothly. Since the boat was paid off and without any liens, he told me everything would go through easily and fairly quickly. I quickly signed, notarized and Fedex'ed the paperwork back to him. I asked him where the boat was, and he replied that it was in one of his service bays.*
I checked with him several times over the next week or so to see how the transaction was moving along and when I should expect to see the payoff. It was always something on the line of "just waiting on his bank but it's definitely sold". Each time I asked "where is my boat?" And the answer was always "it's in one of the service bays", and told that Dennis was having it serviced and detailed. I told him that it had just been serviced and needed nothing that I was aware of.*
That takes us to August 6th. I had spoken to him earlier in the week and he told me that he should have a check by Friday. I was really starting to feel that I was being stalled and put off. I came out with a buddy and decided to drop in to OCM to drop off the boat cover to Dennis and to see if my boat was indeed on property. This was the day when my suspicions and concerns were confirmed. I walked through the entire facility and my boat was not to be found. I then met Dennis, gave him the cover and we talked briefly. I asked him where my boat was and he informed me that it was at his house. He also told me that they had had the boat out several times and really enjoyed it. I just absorbed what he said and then called Tim who was out of town. I told him in light of what had just been told to me, I wanted a cashiers check cut and Fedex'd overnight to me by the next day. He was not happy and said he'd try and get it out by Monday, August 10th.*
We had a family vacation to Florida leaving on the 10th. I kept calling our house sitter to see if the check had arrived. When it hadn't by Wednesday the 12th, I called him and asked where the check was. He said it went out in Tuesday's mail. I was surprised that he used USPS mail that couldn't be tracked, and for a $40k check, but I was becoming less and less surprised by how things were playing out. When we arrived home Friday night and the check wasn't in, I called him on Saturday and said once again, "where is my check"? He said that if OCM didn't receive mail, then the postman wouldn't have stopped by his business and that the check would have gone out on Thursday the 13th. Really? Hard to believe.... So we waited. Come Tuesday August 18th, still no check. I asked him to cancel the check and issue a cashiers check, like I had asked for originally, and Fedex'd overnight. To this day, the original said check has never arrived. Maybe lost in the mail. Hmmm.....
It was around this time that 29Commander's (Joe) thread showed up on RDP that made me even more concerned about my own situation. This portion of my story you are all well aware of, as Dave put pressure on Tim to wrap up both our boat transactions and make us whole. Tim then promised to Fedex a cashiers check overnight, to go out Thursday, August 20th. When the 21st rolled around and Joe's payment didn't come through, Dave, as has been reported, went to OCM to pull out Danny's boat. He spoke with Dennis and was told that it was he, Dennis, who took the envelope to FedEx and dropped it off at 10:20am on that Friday, with*a delivery date of Monday the 24th, clearly not the Friday delivery that I was told it would be. Dennis also told Dave that he had no idea that I hadn't been paid.*
I picked up the check when Fedex opened at 8am on Monday morning the 24th. I wasn't surprised to see that the check was not a cashiers check but a regular check out of the OCM account. What also didn't surprise me either was that the check wasn't valid. It had 40k written in the number field but said 4 thousand in the line below. An honest mistake? I then drove to a branch of his bank and tried to see if they would issue a cashiers check. They said they could not because I didn't have an account with them. I then asked the manager to see if a 40k check would clear. He said no, insufficient funds. Just prior to me arriving at his bank, I get a call from Tim saying " if you don't like the form of check you're receiving today, just let me know. I will issue a cashiers check or wire you funds today." Clearly he knew the check wasn't good. I told him that I would call him later in the day.
I got Joe's number and called him, asking him to keep me apprised of his dealings with Tim, who he was meeting at noon that day at the bank. Most of you know how that played out, with the two of them traveling to Kingman to get that branch to release funds from an apparent wire into Tim's account. Joe was able to get his funds transferred directly into his account. Around this time Tim called me and asked if I was willing to take a cashiers check and have Joe deliver it to me late on Monday somewhere in the San Diego area. I've never met Joe but I jumped on that scenario. Here's the caveat. Tim asked that for him to cut me the check, I would need to say to the Havasu newspaper, that my deal went smoothly and that I was happy with my dealings with OCM. I said absolutely. I would have said just about anything to make sure the check was cut and heading my direction at that moment. In all honesty, I didn't think that I would even get a call from the paper, and if so, I could tell him off record what was really going on.*
Here's where it got even stranger. Not 15 minutes later but I get another call from Tim, this time a conference call with the reporter from the paper. He asked me if I had a check coming and I confirmed that it was in route. He asked me the amount, and I confirmed 40k. He asked me about the check that I received that morning in the Fedex envelope and before I could say a word, Tim responded with "I sent Kurt a check last week but he preferred a cashiers check, so I cut him one today." The last question asked was whether or not I was happy with my dealings with Tim and OCM - I replied "yes". It seemed pretty obvious to me that my comments weren't made freely and I was hopeful that my quote wouldn't be used in any article. But it was. I met Joe at about 10:30pm in Oceanside to pick up my check.*
The check has cleared as of this morning. I want to thank Dave, and the many close friends I have here as well as all of the RDP community for the positive support for both myself and Joe. I'm convinced that these threads and with Dave's help, expedited my payment immensely. And a big thank you goes out to Joe for going out of his way to deliver my check to me. Very cool!
On Tim's behalf, the deal was finalized right at about the 30 day time period as per his agreement. Of course that's based on the sale date of July 28th. Only he knows if that date was the actual sale date.
Let me start by saying that OCM was not my first choice for a broker. I really wanted to list with Maxed Out Marine. I spoke with Ricky and Paul and have a great deal of respect for both of them. The ONLY reason I didn't list with them is that they had no storage place for my boat during the sales process.
So, I took my Nordic Heat to OCM a couple days prior to the Desert Storm weekend, @April 21-26th. I told Tim that I wanted to net 40k out of the sale, which he felt was fair. We agreed that the asking price was going to be I believe 45 or so thousand, to include his 10% fee and a little negotiating room. (I don't remember the exact asking price anymore). When it went up on his website, it was listed at 49k. I immediately called him and asked why the price had been increased. He said his web page guy made a mistake. It took several calls over the next week and a half before it was lowered. Honest mistake? Maybe so.*
So we'll jump to July 28th. Tim notified me that he was selling my boat to Dennis, one of his co-workers. He had told me for a couple weeks prior that Dennis was interested in helping to purchase my boat for his daughter, son in law and family. I asked him when I should expect payment from the sale. He said that I should see it in a week or so. Up to that point, I hadn't sent Tim ANY of my title or registration paperwork. I simply didn't feel comfortable doing so. With the sale to one of his employees, I then felt the sale would go through smoothly. Since the boat was paid off and without any liens, he told me everything would go through easily and fairly quickly. I quickly signed, notarized and Fedex'ed the paperwork back to him. I asked him where the boat was, and he replied that it was in one of his service bays.*
I checked with him several times over the next week or so to see how the transaction was moving along and when I should expect to see the payoff. It was always something on the line of "just waiting on his bank but it's definitely sold". Each time I asked "where is my boat?" And the answer was always "it's in one of the service bays", and told that Dennis was having it serviced and detailed. I told him that it had just been serviced and needed nothing that I was aware of.*
That takes us to August 6th. I had spoken to him earlier in the week and he told me that he should have a check by Friday. I was really starting to feel that I was being stalled and put off. I came out with a buddy and decided to drop in to OCM to drop off the boat cover to Dennis and to see if my boat was indeed on property. This was the day when my suspicions and concerns were confirmed. I walked through the entire facility and my boat was not to be found. I then met Dennis, gave him the cover and we talked briefly. I asked him where my boat was and he informed me that it was at his house. He also told me that they had had the boat out several times and really enjoyed it. I just absorbed what he said and then called Tim who was out of town. I told him in light of what had just been told to me, I wanted a cashiers check cut and Fedex'd overnight to me by the next day. He was not happy and said he'd try and get it out by Monday, August 10th.*
We had a family vacation to Florida leaving on the 10th. I kept calling our house sitter to see if the check had arrived. When it hadn't by Wednesday the 12th, I called him and asked where the check was. He said it went out in Tuesday's mail. I was surprised that he used USPS mail that couldn't be tracked, and for a $40k check, but I was becoming less and less surprised by how things were playing out. When we arrived home Friday night and the check wasn't in, I called him on Saturday and said once again, "where is my check"? He said that if OCM didn't receive mail, then the postman wouldn't have stopped by his business and that the check would have gone out on Thursday the 13th. Really? Hard to believe.... So we waited. Come Tuesday August 18th, still no check. I asked him to cancel the check and issue a cashiers check, like I had asked for originally, and Fedex'd overnight. To this day, the original said check has never arrived. Maybe lost in the mail. Hmmm.....
It was around this time that 29Commander's (Joe) thread showed up on RDP that made me even more concerned about my own situation. This portion of my story you are all well aware of, as Dave put pressure on Tim to wrap up both our boat transactions and make us whole. Tim then promised to Fedex a cashiers check overnight, to go out Thursday, August 20th. When the 21st rolled around and Joe's payment didn't come through, Dave, as has been reported, went to OCM to pull out Danny's boat. He spoke with Dennis and was told that it was he, Dennis, who took the envelope to FedEx and dropped it off at 10:20am on that Friday, with*a delivery date of Monday the 24th, clearly not the Friday delivery that I was told it would be. Dennis also told Dave that he had no idea that I hadn't been paid.*
I picked up the check when Fedex opened at 8am on Monday morning the 24th. I wasn't surprised to see that the check was not a cashiers check but a regular check out of the OCM account. What also didn't surprise me either was that the check wasn't valid. It had 40k written in the number field but said 4 thousand in the line below. An honest mistake? I then drove to a branch of his bank and tried to see if they would issue a cashiers check. They said they could not because I didn't have an account with them. I then asked the manager to see if a 40k check would clear. He said no, insufficient funds. Just prior to me arriving at his bank, I get a call from Tim saying " if you don't like the form of check you're receiving today, just let me know. I will issue a cashiers check or wire you funds today." Clearly he knew the check wasn't good. I told him that I would call him later in the day.
I got Joe's number and called him, asking him to keep me apprised of his dealings with Tim, who he was meeting at noon that day at the bank. Most of you know how that played out, with the two of them traveling to Kingman to get that branch to release funds from an apparent wire into Tim's account. Joe was able to get his funds transferred directly into his account. Around this time Tim called me and asked if I was willing to take a cashiers check and have Joe deliver it to me late on Monday somewhere in the San Diego area. I've never met Joe but I jumped on that scenario. Here's the caveat. Tim asked that for him to cut me the check, I would need to say to the Havasu newspaper, that my deal went smoothly and that I was happy with my dealings with OCM. I said absolutely. I would have said just about anything to make sure the check was cut and heading my direction at that moment. In all honesty, I didn't think that I would even get a call from the paper, and if so, I could tell him off record what was really going on.*
Here's where it got even stranger. Not 15 minutes later but I get another call from Tim, this time a conference call with the reporter from the paper. He asked me if I had a check coming and I confirmed that it was in route. He asked me the amount, and I confirmed 40k. He asked me about the check that I received that morning in the Fedex envelope and before I could say a word, Tim responded with "I sent Kurt a check last week but he preferred a cashiers check, so I cut him one today." The last question asked was whether or not I was happy with my dealings with Tim and OCM - I replied "yes". It seemed pretty obvious to me that my comments weren't made freely and I was hopeful that my quote wouldn't be used in any article. But it was. I met Joe at about 10:30pm in Oceanside to pick up my check.*
The check has cleared as of this morning. I want to thank Dave, and the many close friends I have here as well as all of the RDP community for the positive support for both myself and Joe. I'm convinced that these threads and with Dave's help, expedited my payment immensely. And a big thank you goes out to Joe for going out of his way to deliver my check to me. Very cool!
On Tim's behalf, the deal was finalized right at about the 30 day time period as per his agreement. Of course that's based on the sale date of July 28th. Only he knows if that date was the actual sale date.
This is so jacked up.:thumbsdown
