State police visited

daddyox

daddyox

Member
Apr 1, 2007
244
Connecticut River
Boat Info
Sundancer 320 2004
Engines
260 5.0 B III's
Last night as I was falling asleep, my doorbell rang.
State police lady was at my door. Imagine the thoughts that went through my mind with two kids away at college..

Anyway, she asked if I was the owner of a 32 foot Searay. Ummm, yes. Miami Dade police had called about my boat, and wanted me to call the detective immediately. She asked if my boat was in miami...nope, I've owned it since 2007 and it's shrink wrapped until April, in CT.
So, I called, told the detective why, who mentioned a problem with "boat cloning " in Miami which I assume is insurance or sales fraud. He asked if my boat was named 5 o'clock somewhere, I said yes, and then he said we are sorry to bother you and you're all set. That was it!

Can anyone tell me what happened? Why did the state police have to come out? Couldn't they just call me? I'm registered by the way. Any thoughts??
 
I would imagine they came to your door because they were asking for personally identifiable information, which you should never provide to anybody that calls you on the phone. It's one thing if you call them and they ask for the information in order to provide the service you are requesting, but unless they can prove who they are and what their need is, they cannot just call you on the phone and ask.
 
Sound like someone was possibly running a scam on the internet. Is it possible they got pictures of you boat and posted it for sale online with a Florida location?
 
JVM225 said:
Sound like someone was possibly running a scam on the internet. Is it possible they got pictures of you boat and posted it for sale online with a Florida location?
Click to expand...

I suppose that is possible. It was just strange when he confirmed to me "Is your boat 5 O'Clock Somewhere" and said "sorry to bother you". The police came to the door, and I asked should I call now, and she said he had just called, so yes. It was 10pm or so. I was kinda hoping it was destroyed and I was getting a new boat. :)
 
After I bought the 47DB, there were pictures and ads for it in several places. I didn't think much about it.

Be interested to learn why the Police were involved.

Pls keep us posted.
 
When you sell a boat in the US does the name go with it and is the name registered along with the state registration number.
 
If a boat is "documented" with the Coast Guard, the name goes with it. If it is registered with the state only, there is no record of the name and it does not go with the boat.
Rob
northern said:
When you sell a boat in the US does the name go with it and is the name registered along with the state registration number.
Click to expand...
 
My money is on a scam .....probably Craigslist in Florida. They probably used pictures of your boat to scam someone out of a deposit or put your boat name on a stolen boat. Either way the Detective in Florida was putting together the case and needed local confirmation that you still had the boat. Why don't you give the Florida Detective a call to see if he needs anything else from you (and find out what the real story is).
 
I work in a very related field to the person who paid you a visit the other night....... There are reports around the country of numerous violations of the Boat Identification Act, I remember seeing a country wide law enforcement specific email about it a short while back. It interested me and and I read it in its entirety mainly because of my boat addictions haha. I just tried to find it in my work email but it must have been deleted.

It was something along the lines of boat exporters altering the HINs on stolen boats and shipping them overseas never to be seen again. I believe Florida has the highest number of dealers which export boats on the east coast and the gulf. If I was a betting man I would put money on a unit of the Florida State Police (probably some unit similar to the Governor's Auto Theft Taskforce which was recently disbanded on my job) checking up on a lead of a stolen boat being sold, possibly a very similar HIN to yours so they could be rounding up all the possible boats and physically inspecting them.

And its ALWAYS better to make a house visit rather than a phone call on matters like this, a person reaction and facial expressions can tell a lot.
 
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