Deceiving, lying crooks
I have never come across such terrible scammers and crooks as ESLAyacht.com in Spain.
They had a boat for sale that I was very interested in viewing. I told them there was one specific day when I absolutely could not make it, but that I was available on any other day to fly over there. They scheduled the viewing on the one day I had specifically said I couldn’t come. Why? I have no idea.
While I couldn’t make it, apparently someone else could. So, despite the fact that I was next on the list to view the boat, they allowed another potential buyer to go ahead of me. Afterwards, they told me: “There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that the other candidate made an offer. The good news is that the offer wasn’t accepted.”
And what was this offer? €10,000 below the asking price. And they didn’t accept it? Well, in that case, I told them there was no point in me coming, because I certainly wasn’t planning to offer that much.
They insisted that I should still come and view the boat. However, none of the dates on which I could come together with an experienced skipper suited them. It became very clear that they wanted me to come alone.
Eventually, I went to see the boat (anlone) and made an offer lower than the previous offer that had supposedly already been made. My offer was accepted immediately.
It was explained to me that if the survey revealed any serious defects that could compromise the safety of the vessel, the costs would be the seller’s responsibility. According to them, this did not need to be written into the contract because it was supposedly standard practice. I insisted that it be included in writing, along with the condition that the boat would be sold as it had been presented in the documentation and in the photographs.
After two hours of discussion, they finally agreed to include this in the contract. I paid a deposit, and we waited for the survey.
The survey revealed something serious — and that’s when all hell broke loose.
They refused to honour the contract. They no longer wanted to spend any money on repairs. They even claimed that the contract was not valid because the word “contract” did not appear as its title.
However, they also refused to return my deposit, even though the boat suddenly appeared for sale again and they informed me that they intended to sell it to someone else.
I had to hire a lawyer to prevent them from selling the boat to someone else while keeping my deposit. They lied repeatedly, even during conversations with my lawyer.
Eventually, they offered to pay half of the costs, and I accepted simply because I wanted to get away from the whole situation and finally put an end to it.
Afterwards, it became clear that the boat had many more defects:
The holding tank was blocked.
The toilet pump worked three times — apparently all a surveyor tests — and then stopped working completely.
The autopilot did not work.
The anchor windlass was broken. They had shown the surveyor how it supposedly worked, but, conveniently, they could not actually lower the anchor in the harbour. That was their excuse.
The refrigerator was leaking.
And the list goes on and on...
Even when it came to drafting the final sales contract, they did not hesitate to be dishonest. Everything was written entirely in favour of the seller, with no fairness or balance whatsoever for the buyer.
Every change I requested was initially refused. Eventually, they agreed to make some concessions and promised that they would keep my section of the text unchanged.
To my great surprise, it had been changed again in the next version.
When I confronted them about it, their response was: “Your text is exactly the same. We haven’t changed anything.”
What they failed to mention was that they had added two sentences that completely undermined and effectively cancelled out the meaning of my original text.
These people are crooks.
In my opinion, these people should lose their licence immediately. My experience with them was one of constant dishonesty and misleading behaviour. From the very first conversation to the very end, I felt that I was being lied to and manipulated.
I would strongly advise anyone considering doing business with ESLAyacht.com to be extremely careful and to make sure that every single agreement, promise, and condition is clearly written into the contract and verified by a lawyer!!