Well heres my experience so far.
I got desperate enough to try buying a used outboard on the internet from this web site. Contacted them and they quickly replied back saying that the motor i wanted was still available. They offered a different ways to pay digitally so that they could ship it to me the next day. I decided that i would go with pay pal and they sent the information over for payment.
First red flag. They asked me to send the payment under the friends and family selection on paypal. A quick google search told me that this would void the paypal buyer protection meaning paypal would not refund me my money if it was a scam. I told the salesman that i wasn’t comfortable with that and he quickly offered to let me pay half upfront and half on delivery. I figured that maybe they were trying to evade fees from pay pal and this didn’t necessarily mean it was a scam.
I agreed to this and just used a credit card through paypal so that I could ask for a charge back in case it was in fact a scam.
I did not get shipping confirmation for the next day nor have i yet. Its been more than a week.
After paying for half of the motor, comunication dropped off dramatically and now they dont even reply to any of my emails, texts, or calls. Their phone number has no voicemail and no one ever picks up.
The motor i bought was never marked as sold on their web site. In fact, the same motors are listed now as when i initially looked 2 weeks ago. No changes. With the used outboard market the way it is right now, im assuming they would have sold some of those motors or maybe even aquired some new inventory. On top of this, after looking at Obparts.com per someones recomendation here, i noticed that the EXACT motors are being sold in both places. You have to look a little bit but you can find the same motor with the same serial number and same description in both places. Its not clear to me whether these two places work together to sell motors but one is in NC and the other is in KY.
So whether this is a scam or just a poorly run buisness i cant say for sure. Either way, unless I hear back from them sometime soon, i suppose my only corse of action is to report the charge to my credit card company and have them charge it back.