Deer Valley Watersports Boatplex WARNING-I got ripped off at Deer VAlley Watersports Phoenix, Arizona

 I am writing this complaint against Deer Valley Watersports and Ryan Martin because we are 1 of the many people he has taken to the cleaners in is fraudulent boat scam that he has been operating out of his business. We hope that someone will read this and not be another victim to add to his 10-15 boat owners that he has ripped off!!

My wife and I decided to post an add on craigslist in an attempt to sell our boat, we were shortly contacted by a sales person from Deer Valley Watersports (Kenny) who is the sales rep. there, stated that for a $1500.00 fee they could sell our boat a little faster for us. Seemed like a good idea at the time because we didn't want to deal with taking the boat to the lake and showing it to potential buyers, and dealing with the low-bidders out there trying to make a few bucks off the sale of our boat.

So we agreed to sign a contract with Deer Valley watersports on 3/31/2008 to sell our boat. I drove my boat to there shop in North Phoenix and after checking the N.A.D.A set a 55,000.00 sale price on it.

Now after several months and a bad economy we agreed to drop the price 50,000.00 and see if we got any offers. We even took the boat out for a week and then returned it back over to Kenny and Deer Valley Watersports hoping it would sell and dropped the price a few more thousand.

And then in March of 2009, we got a call from Kenny stating he had someone from out of state that was interested and the negotiations for a sale price began. After we agreed on a sale price of 39.575.00. A lot short of what we expected, but in these times even our homes are not worth what they were before the financial fallout of our economy.

This is where we began to have our problems when Mr. Ryan Martin entered the picture. I guess he handles the finances after a sale of a boat according to Kenny his salesman. Several weeks passed by and no word or phone calls from Deer Valley, and we made several calls to them with no return calls back. Our suspicions began! My wife and I agreed to drive to Deer Valley Watersports, which is an hour 1 way for us, upon our arrival we began to look for our boat! It was not there. When we confronted salesperson Kenny, he stated he did not know where our boat was and that it might be at Lake Pleasant in there dry-dock storage area. For one, we had an agreement that our boat was not to leave there yard unless we were contacted as to why!

So off we went to Lake Pleasant, we searched every dry-dock storage area on the lake, and no boat! We then contacted Phoenix Police Department and filed a report that our boat was missing. We then placed several calls to Ryan Martin who was apparently missing also. Ryan returned our call a week later.

When he called me the next week he stated that the boat got sold earlier in the week and he forgot to call us!! Ya right!! So we said where's our money? He said he would have a check for us at the end of the week. After a week went by, he then said the bank wouldn't release the funds for 10 working days. After 10 working days went by, we again asked him for our money, and Ryan Martin stated that the Gov't had seized the money and he was tryin to get it back!! He wrote us a check for 37025.00 on 8/17/2009, which had insufficient funds. 

What Ryan Martin was really doing was paying off other debts. and floating his business with the money he received from our boat sale. We are not the only ones either, since Ryan Martins arrest 2 weeks ago for fraud by Phoenix Police Department, several other people have come forward with complaints for the same fraudulent boat scheme. There  are 10 cases confirmed and could be anywhere from 15-20 cases adding up to almost 500,000.00 dollars that Ryan Martin and Deer Valley Watersports has taken from boat owners. Some people still have a lein on there boat and are making payments on boats they don't even have. Deer Valley Watersports will not release any info. as to where our boat is!!

Since then, we have heard every excuse in the book from Ryan Martin, dog ate my homework, etc. etc. And we are not sure if the sale price of our boat was actually what it sold for, Ryan Martin produced a bogus sales receipt that anyone could have made themselves. We don't even know the date our boat was sold because there is no date on the sales receipt

We have met with Phoenix Police and the investigation is ongoing a of today 4/12/2010.

I have learned that approx. 20 boats are still on consignment at there shop in North Phoenix, if you have a boat there you better go get it before you become a victim like us. Any questions regarding this case please call Phoenix Police at 602-534-1739.