A lesson learned - a warning to all.

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sweet-tooth

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I've changed my usual user name and for obvious reasons will not name person involved but will refer to them as Z !.

I had a talented horse that had to be sold, and with no facilities at home, I followed some recommendations from friends to sell via Z. Whom I had heard of and seen ride and thought great.
A livery price was agreed and also the commission % on the sale, and off my horse went.

Within days of my horse going to Z my dad past away, it was not expected and so my main focus was not selling my horse but to be there for my mum. I did pop up several times to see my horse and he was being well cared for.

I was promised that my horse would be taken to x, y z to be competed but the majority of the time an excuse came as to why he didn't go, i think if i'd been more on the ball maybe I could have stopped what eventually happened.

My horse had been at livery for nearly 8 weeks and I was fast running out of money, so I asked Z to reduce his selling price, within a day we had people coming to see him, and Z said that his phone hadn't stopped ringing, Z knew at this point I would have to take him back or something because I was due in hospital for an operation and would not be in a position to look after a horse for weeks, he knew that I would have reduced him further to sell.

Z rang up and said i have good news for you, I have sold your horse, I thought great, Z then said, but its for x amount which was considerably lower than the asking price, I told Z that I would have to think about it and get back to him shortly, Z bizarrely said that he had accepted the offer:eek:And all other interested parties had bought something else, so had cancelled the viewings.

I weighed my options up and decided to accept the offer, the vetting was arranged and I waited with baited breath if he passed. I then got a phone call to say yes and he'd gone to his new home. I asked about the money and Z said that the cheque had been payable to himself, I now know this to be untrue, and to give him a day or so , so he could arrange payment to me.:cool:

I chatted to my friends and we all felt that something didn't sit right, so I arranged to visit Z the following day and pick my money up, whilst I was there I asked for a copy of the sales receipt, at this point I knew something was really amiss, excuses were made as to why they couldn't find the receipt , but would write me one out now !
I then asked for the contact details of the new purchaser , again this wasn't forth coming, so I left and the investigation work started.

It transpired that the purchasers paid the full asking price, I was given an amount and Z took the rest, it equated Z taking over 30% of the selling price plus being paid 8 weeks livery plus expenses.

I now know why both parties were kept part as this would have all come out .

I am a soft some may say gullable person, but that is just the way I am. But I am hurt, upset , angry that this person who makes a living selling/ schooling can steal money from a client and I think is sorry he has got caught rather than the nature of the crime.

So for those who have horses in sales livery, please make sure all payments are made payable to you in the first instance, make sure you see the original sales receipt and try and speak to the new owners, i would hate for anyone to fall foul like I did.

I am now out of hospital and still cannot believe what has happened, and dread the time when I next see Z, because all parties concerned are very local to each other.

I would like to clarify that the care of my horse whilst at Z's was second to none, but his lying and empty promises and ultimately his theft has left me feeling very bitter indeed.
 
Did you have a written contract stating the % that Z was to receive?

If so then ask the new owner for a copy of their receipt and then take Z to small claims court to recoup the difference

I don't care how small the equestrian world is, this is a breach of contract and deception, therefore you'd win. Of course if you tell Z this, they may cough up!
 
Unfortunately this happens a lot, it is just that the seller usually doesn't find out the actual sale price of the horse. Dealer says horse sold for x amount, buyer agrees with dealer to pay x+££, dealer pockets the difference, plus their commission on x, plus the livery. So the moral of the story is to make sure that you as the owner of the horse communicate directly with the buyer and make sure the contract of sale is drawn up in your name and signed by you and buyer.
 
Sorry should have said that a few days after this "incident" had come to light , a few friends visited Z and came back with the missing money in cash !.

Yes we all knew before the sale how much I would pay per week and the end sales commission %.

I am just so surprised that Z did this to me, or i suppose anyone else when reputation is key to survival.
 
far from uncommon unfortunatey where some dealers are concerned.

Again without names I know someone who asked there (now obviously ex) trainer to find them a horse. They found a horse and x amount was paid. It then though turns out that the trainer was in cahoots with the seller so to speak and had doubled the price (yes doubled and this wasn't a cheap horse!), the trainer was given nearly half by the seller and the seller kept the rest (so just over the real asking price).

End result though is horse did what it was bought for and a horse is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay, but the trainer had been blatently dishonest in order that they received significant financial gain!
 
I feel for you. I imagine the buyer isn't very happy either. I hope you at least get some money out of him.

ETS I just seen your other post :)
 
Halfstep- is it really such a common thing to happen ?- I'm shocked, I guess I do have to toughen up then.

But at the end of the day its theft, he had no entitlement to that money, but as someone else has said to me that maybe I wasn't the first and daresay won't be the last, but i'm sure his reputation will suffer for it, as he is such a small operation.
 
I would still report this incident to trading standards to help prevent the same thing happening to someone else in future.
 
Lets just say they were friends of a friend, I certainly wouldn't want to cross them.

But it worked I got my money and no one was hurt in the process.:D
 
v well done getting your money back.
unfortunately there has to be some trust when these situations are set up, and sometimes it doesn't just work. i know people who have been on the other side of this sort of thing and ended up cheated out of money too. also, someone who sent a nice young horse to a well-known rider and ended up with a resentful youngster because god-knows-what went on when the horse was there...
but then, sometimes it works well. a friend sent a horse to Graham Law last year to be competed and sold and he did a really good job for her.
 
kerilli - you hit the nail on the head for me - trust. I did trust Z my instructor recommended him as did her instructor.

I paid him for a service and thought just for a moment that he would have had my best interest at heart, because the more money he achieved for my horse, the more commission he achieved:rolleyes:

How wrong was I on that one.

I hope he has learnt a lesson, because I know that his reputation is now tarnished and a lot of people do not want to be associated with him any more, so ultimately he will cost him more than he originally stole - such a shame!
 
I think you did the right thing sending your "friends" round there - it is often the way things are done. Selling agents will take anything from 10% upwards, whether they write it down or not, and I think they view every seller as fair game unless they have a prior reputation of having "friends". I would imagine you won't have problems again, thanks to your actions this time. Too many people roll over and accept it, and will get taken for a ride time and time again. On the other side of the coin I sold a horse to Italy for a lot of money, but I'm pretty sure the buyers paid up to twice what I got and I didn't have a problem with it to be honest, as I got the money I wanted, so I wasn't going to throw my weight around in that situation. He was at mine the whole time though.
 
I agree whole heartedly with t_e. Alas, it happens all the time and the best protection is saying straight out you're not to be messed with. Bizarrely, people like that are often so quick to back down when they know they've been spotted, it's almost like a game. :(

As above, I think there is a difference when you get the money you want, even if they get more. People may not think that's fair but the contract is for the agent to get you x amount and if they do, you can't really fault them.

But what happened to you is, as you say, theft/fraud. Not on.

It's one of the things I hate about the industry. I was lucky enough where I lived before, to have a scrupulously honest rep which meant clients felt they could trust me and the bad apples knew to just leave me to myself. (Oddly, I got on very well with most of them, they just knew not to tell me anything bad! :) )

I'm very glad you got your problems sorted. But I am very sad that yet another person who just loves horses and doesn't mean any harm to anyone, has been screwed by people in the industry.
 
I had a similar thing happen to me 20 odd years ago. I sent a young horse away to be broken and schooled. The person concerned ended up trying to sell the horse, having told me that the horse was lethal and dangerous, when horse wasnt even for sale. He told me that he had an offer for the horse and when I consulted the people the offer was much higher than I had originally been told by this con man of a dealer.
 
sweet-tooth said:
Yes you are right Katt, because Z is well known in the SJ circles around here.
Click to expand...

Well, you can have your revenge on this person then. If they are well known in SJ circles, make sure everyone knows about it, obviously not laying yourself wide open to defamation of character. They will soon regret doing what they have done when they dont have any more business. Glad you did get your money back though - you have great 'friends'.
 
I think this is disgusting especially if Z knew your dad had died and that you had to have an operation so would be vulnerable.
 
i have to say this sort of thing really does not surprise me. speaking from experience - i wouldnt trust 90% of pros at all.

we sent a horse to be competed and sold - it did f all as they were too lazy but told us of all its wonderful 'adventures' out competing (i suppose they thought we'd never look at its record!) and obviously it didnt sell as which suited them fine as they were getting livery money

another person, we sent one a tricky one to be broken - they couldnt be bothered to do it properly so sedated it, we went to collect and i tried it, going lovely (obviously!) then went dangerously loopy at home. never thought to tell us!

and then the excellent story of someone i know sending their horse to be competed with someone. Rider sold horse without owner knowing. Kept drawing livery money for the horse which had been sold on - the owner only found out when they went to a show, saw someone else on the horse and said 'why are you on my horse? Reply - ' its mine, i brought it off so and so' !

they are unreal !
 
I know of a pro event rider with a very 'nice' image who increased the price of a horse by 5k when she found out the buyers had lots of money- and they bought the horse.

I have also know of a yard that sold an owners horse abroad and told the owner it had broken its leg.

There are very few genuine dealers out there.
 
I have been burnt, but in a slightly different manner. My horse was with a YR to sell, he wasn't going particularly well and so his back was checked. Although I had had his back checked regularly whilst I had him due to a scar behind the saddle, the back man told me that his back was knackered and he was pretty much a write off. I was really upset, but accepted that he would be, at best, a hack. Anyway, a dealer went to the yard to look at a lorry and it just so happened that he saw my horse and offered a grand for him as his daughter was looking for a horse to hack around the farm. I was advised to take the money and so I did....losing thousands of pounds in the process. Once I had paid my livery money I was left with nothing.

A couple of weeks later a user on here made a post saying that she had seen my horse at show and had photos! I was utterly bewildered, and then cross with the new owner for jumping a horse that had been *written off* However, I got in contact with her and it transpired that my horse had been sold within a week for, iirc, £7k, as a fully fit RC horse.

To this day I do not know what happened - did the back man give the dealer a nod? Am 100% that the YR had nothing to do with it as they were/are friends of mine, the dealer was known to them and they were not happy with how things had gone either.

And my horse? Well he is still out competing, jumping most weekends, winning local puissance and is much loved.....in short he is still the horse I sent to sell. The back man has an amazing rep, but in this case the diagnosis that I had always had was absolutely correct, it was mostly superficial and would not mean he would be a non competitive horse.

Whilst I know that once you sell a horse his future is out of your hands, but to be blatantly lied to just means that the horse world will always be full of suspicions, and that is just very sad.

I have another horse abroad that was sent there to sell...the agent is still playing silly buggers a year on and I, and my agent in this country, are out of pocket on that one too....needless to say my husband is sick to death of being shafted, and my nice little side line in buying and selling has been foreclosed by him for the moment. Because of these two incidents we are out of pocket by almost a 5 figure sum as it stands, tho I do have faith that one day I will get the majority back!
 
Thanks for all your comments, the people that the recommendations came from are letting a lot of people know what Z is like and just to warn them if they still want to deal with him, the majority have cut their ties with him.

While I'm in recovery from my operation I'm searching for my next horse, but who do you trust, it really has made me think that I need to toughen up a little and be a little less trusting but that is changing the person that I am:rolleyes:

Weezy - I really hope you get your money back in the not so distant future.

Have a good day everyone.:)
 
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