Anglers Marine

*** update 12÷18÷15: the owner contacted me about my review to express his concerns about this review. I include his thoughts and my changes to my original review based on them.
1. The owner wants it known that the discrepancy about it being a broker vs owned boat was a mistake by his staff who sends out 10 – 15 such letters a week. He also says the confusion over boat length was due to a mistake by a newly hired internet marketing person.
2. The owner confirms that he told his contract delivery driver he would not pay for toll roads. He said it was the driver’s choice, not his, whether to pay for toll roads. According to the owner, the driver going 800 extra miles is the driver’s fault. He said I have a problem with his delivery people I should take it up with them and offered me their contact info. The owner says that if he delivers a boat and trailer to me and the tires blow en route, the cost of the blown tires is my responsibility to pay. He says he paid $ 200 for the two tires that blew en route but decided not to charge me for it as a kindness. In light of my review he invited me to send him a $ 200 check to cover it.
3. The owner says the engine hour discrepancy is my fault for buying the boat. He says if I did not want to buy the boat I did not have to buy it He reminds me that, after I asked why the motor hours he advertised was different than what the motor computer printout revealed, he told me he was not going to sell me the boat for insulting his integrity and business ethics. He wants it known that he only agreed to sell me the boat because I apologized for asking such hard questions and begged him to sell me the boat, and now wishes he had not.
4. The owner wants an explanation why I bought the boat if the experience was so distasteful. That is a fair question. I bought the boat because it was the only one I could find anywhere on the east coast. They are not common or easy to find. If I passed on his I could have gone a year or more before finding another like it. I bought the boat without knowing for certain why the engine hours did not match. I took the risk that it was something simple, as it turned out to be. The reported hours did not match the computer because Anglers did not understand how a standard Yamaha hour meter works. One touch of the button on the gauge revealed the total hours, which matched what the computer said. So one mystery (engine hour discrepancy) was solved. The other mystery — why Angers had a cow when I asked about it — remains unsolved.
Here is my original review, edited after hearing from the owner.
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I bought a used 2006 Grady White. It came on a nice trailer. The purchase price included the seller delivering the boat to me. I’m sharing my experience for others who might want to buy from Anglers long-​distance. There are pros and cons, which yield my 2 star rating.
The salesman, Glenn, was responsive and pleasant. He sent his own photos of items I wanted to see. But he had confused and contradictory information. The ad, and Glenn, said the Yamaha 250 motor on the boat had 172 hours. Several days later, when Glenn sent me a computer scan, it showed the motor had 286 hours. I asked about the engine hour difference. Glenn could not explain it. I thought it odd and asked him to find out. Then, Glenn’s boss intervened, angry that that I questioned their business ethic. He refused to sell me the boat until I apologized for asking questions and promised not to ask any more.
When the boat was delivered to me, the first thing I did was check the Yamaha gauge on the boat. The gauge read 172 hours, just like the ad said. But there’s a button to toggle the hours readout. Push the button and it toggles from TRIP hours to TOTAL hours. The total hours was 286. Did a sophisticated retailer like Angler’s not understand the difference between trip and total hours on a standard Yamaha gauge?
There were other oddities about the transaction. Their website ad said it was a 20′ boat. It’s actually a 22′. Anglers told the poor driver who brought to boat to me he could not use toll roads because of the expense. As a result he drove an unnecessary 800 extra miles and blew two trailer tires en route. A couple weeks later I received a form letter from Anglers thanking me for my business. It said «even though this was a brokered boat we are grateful for your business.» I was told that this was Angler’s boat.
In summary, I would buy from Anglers again if they had a boat I wanted that I couldn’t get anywhere else What I would do differently next time is meet them face-​to-​face and see the boat first-​hand or have an independent survey. I did neither and that is on me. If you are going to buy from Anglers, you’ll probably be fine but you should eyeball it first hand or get a survey. Caveat emptor.

Last place I would ever do business with again. Bought a new boat from them in July 2013. They took a boat from me on consignment with less than 20 hours on the engine. About 9 months later I get a bill in the mail for a new tire. Didn’t mind paying it, but would have thought they would have called first to alert me that I needed one. Never had an offer on the boat and called them in May 2014 to tell them I was going to pick it up. They said to please leave it with them. Labor Day I get a very low offer, and then I get another 2 days ago which I agree to. I get a phone call later saying the carburetor needs cleaning/​replacing. After questioning why, when it had been cleaned before they got it with ethanol free fuel, Ring Free, and Sta-​Bil in the fuel tank, I was told to just come get it off their lot.
Did they never crank it on a regular basis? My son picked it up last night, and I asked if anybody spoke to him… «No, but somebody on a tractor moving boats around glared at me!» And it had burned bearings in one of the tires on the trailer! Guess they never checked that either. OK service on the new boat but I would never trust them with a consignment! I was treated very well on the sale of the new boat but after that, they were done with customer service!
It is with a great deal of thought that I write this, as I try to find the best in a business in a day when our country is struggling economically, and I’m sure others have had very pleasant experiences here. But for me, it was most disappointing