That can happen. He was taking the horses and selling them at auction, though, right?
I don’t know. I could be completely wrong, but everyone around me is having a hard time getting vet appointments. I would also agree that it’s possible that they’re not that motivated.
I guess this is just something that OP and any other potential buyers might have to discuss, because it sounds to me like it could be hard to get a pre-purchase exam from a vet without a conflict quickly. I’m sure that would be the case if I sold my horse, too, because I’ve used most of the vets nearby for different things.
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Basically. He told people that the horse was for the nephew or for a client, talked them into letting it go free or cheap, and then flipped the horse at New Holland within the week. It was a side hustle for him on top of things like stealing farm equipment & exhorting $$ from landowners. Good cover, too. Because flipping animals is shady but not illegal.
I realize the OP’s situation is different. My broader point was to demonstrate that scamming in this situation isn’t necessarily as onerous as Vxf111 thinks it would be. There are horse savvy shady people out there.
Like I said upthread, if it were me, I’d start by contacting the buyer’s vet just to confirm they exist & that the buyer is a client of the practice. Maybe OP already has done so & I missed seeing that information. The fact that the father failed to sign & return the contract is a yellow flag to me because, as @lenapesadie pointed out, depending on your state, a deposit is far from non-refundable in the absence of a signed contract stating as much.
Again, it is probably fine. I’d rather say something & be wrong than find out too late that I might have been able to help the OP.protect herself.
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Buying horses on false pretenses to flip is 100% different than using a horse as the excuse for an advanced pay scam. He actually WANTED to buy the horse. He just lied to make the sale happen. That’s totally different. I agree that happens commonly. He probably made a couple thousand on each horse flipping them quick and did it in high volume. THAT is a decent investment of time. If OP’s scenario was a scam it would be impossibly risky and low volume to make it work.
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As a loss prevention officer, I’ve watched parents use their elementary school aged kids to case one department while they sat in another. My boss busted a woman who was already on probation, and who promptly turned around & tried to pin the concealed Candies 38D bra & XL thong on her 7yo.
People are sh-tty sometimes. And dishonest, horse-savvy people with access to children exist.
Eta: I’m not asserting that the horse flipping the dude I know was doing was illegal. I’m using him as a real life example of someone for whom none of the conditions you listed as potential barriers to a scam in OP’s situation would present the slightest problem. He can ride, he knows what he’s looking at, he’s got appropriate gear, a kid that can ride, and would be rolling up at your farm in a full-sized rig.
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I don’t think scamming in this situation is difficult. I’m not saying oh for sure the OPs situation is a scam. Just PSA be aware.
Neighbor almost got scammed on a classic car sale; after someone showed up to look at it. So the fact that someone tried the horse doesn’t rule that out imo. Living in an area where the default is deposits are refundable unless you have a valid contract stating otherwise may color my views.
Googling to find a vet clinic with a plausible zip code isn’t difficult.
Lack of signed contract and non horsey person out of country make me concerned about possible misrepresentation of the seller.
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I disagree. Now if the OP comes back and says the deposit is for a couple hundred buck that might be different. For all we know the OP is holding a 5k deposit. Very low risk for the scammer. Sending fake funds and then having the victim send real funds drawn on the fake funds is an old trick
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Regardless of suspicion of this being a scam, IF the buyer requests a refund and the OP does feel as if she should issue the refund then the OP should absolutely verify her deposit funds are fully cleared prior to issuing a refund.
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Exactly. And chances are they’d be working multiple sellers at a time. Scamming is a numbers game just like legitimate sales. For every 10 prospects, you’ll close maybe 1.
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I absolutely agree on verifying the funds and I think that’s pretty much always true.
The contract thing is weird - I’d probably demand a signed contract to continue holding the horse. Without the contract I’d think it might be better to start the process of refunding the deposit. I’m not sure why someone scamming OP wouldn’t go ahead and sign the contract though. In the scams I’ve seen, the scammer had no issue signing contracts.
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Possibly the contract states deposit non refundable?
Obviously the whole thing could be perfectly legit! But better safe than sorry!
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Yup yup. Just like you, I wanted to throw it out there as a PSA. Fraud victims don’t know they are victims until it is too late.
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Makes things less messy if they don’t. Although, they probably don’t mind doing so in cases of a private transaction with someone who can’t reasonably do much to them if they default. Or, the third option, which happened to the business manager of a jiu jitsu gym I go to:
Manager had a guy come in, tour the gym, and sign up. Went thru the paperwork line-by-line with him as manager did with all new students, and then both signed & dated the contract. Fast forward to about 1 year later, when guy announces he’s leaving the gym. “Ok”, manager tells him, “but you’ll need to pay out your monthly dues to the end of the contract.” Guy tells him, “I didn’t sign no f–king contract, bro.”
Manager goes back into his files & pulls the guy’s contract to show him, yes, he did in fact sign. He was stunned to discover that somehow the guy had, in fact, somehow NOT signed the the document. I don’t know if they ever figured out how the guy managed to make it look like he signed without signing it. Whole thing was bizarre!
Interesting! Wiggle your pen over the space and hope vendor is too exhausted to check after answering your 101 dumb questions.
Or magic fading ink from the joke store!
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I think these other scenarios (especially the retail theft ones) are notably different and that this thread is a prime example of hoofbeats and zebras. For this to be a scam you have to make a lot of fairly atypical assumptions and read facts into the situation that the OP hasn’t given us. OP didn’t come here saying “this seems fishy, these people gave me too big of a deposit…” she came here saying “what gives, none of the vets seem to be able to come out and get this PPE done quickly.” I’ve been involved in trying to set up PPEs since the pandemic started and I feel pretty sure this is a horse and not a zebra. But maybe you’re right. I guess we’ll wait and see. I feel pretty confident that one of the following is going to happen when the OP comes back and updates us…
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They finally get a PPE schedule somehow (either the seller will decide she was willing to wait longer than a week or she will trailer the horse somewhere or else the seller/buyer will find someone agreeable to buyer and seller to come to the PPE even if it’s a vet the seller used before) and the horse will either get sold or not based upon the results of the PPE.
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The buyer will dick around and not get the PPE set up and the seller will either keep the deposit and relist the horse or return the check and keep the horse and there will have been no fraud, just annoying timewasting.
But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I hope the OP does come back and update. And for her sake I hope the PPE can just get arranged and that the horse sells.
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The kicker? Manager is a veteran & retired LEO! As is the gym owner. Most of the core group of advanced level members are active LEO. To say they’re vigilant is the understatement of the year. I was once the last to get my food one time when we went out for lunch after class. Walked out onto the restaurant patio to find them circling the table like a herd of cats trying to work out who would sit where to watch what. I just backed up & waited for them to settle 
I hadn’t considered invisible ink. That’s a possibility!
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Me too.
I also hope if she does refund the deposit she verifies the deposit funds are fully cleared. Cause scammers and crappy people exist.
I had a PPE done about a month ago. Vet scheduled me in within 2-3 business days of my request at a farm over an hour away from his office. Granted I wasn’t fussed he had previously worked on the horse for his previous owner and I’m an active client of his.
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I think you might have missed my point in sharing those stories. They aren’t cases of grab &.dash or passing bad checks. Those are barely things anymore in the digital age. Returns fraud is the big thing now. And it is perpetuated by people with an intimate, sophisticated understanding of electronic banking systems & know how to time their transactions just right to exploit vulnerable points in the process.
My intention was to encourage the OP & others finding themselves in a similar situation to exercise caution & perform reasonable due diligence. Because there are cruddy people out there. Hopefully, it all works out & OP knows what changes to make to tighten up the process for the next time.
Do you feel it is harmful to bring up? I mean, my kids are well-versed in how to cross the street but I still remind them to be aware of their surroundings when doing so…
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I didn’t say that, did I?
I don’t think wild speculation is all that helpful to the OP and I think folks on this thread are spinning wild scenarios more for their own entertainment than to truly inform the OP.
Of course people should always be cautious in financial dealings with strangers.
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I find the pay-advance scam comparisons of cars to horses to be pretty extreme. Most people know how to drive a car. Certainly not most people know how to ride a horse well enough to pass as an actual equestrian. Unless maybe they said they were a beginner rider looking for their first horse.
Also, I don’t think non-refundable vs refundable is location-dependent at all. I’m also in Florida, and from Ohio, and in both places it varied wildly if people expected them to be refundable or not.
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Has OP come back?
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