An Irish boater believes he was the victim of an elaborate UK boat sales scam that is targeting Ireland and using a legitimate UK firm's business address.

A west coast based sailor paid for two boats this week after viewing them online only never to hear back from the company again.

"I thought the prices were too good to be true and as it turns out, they were", the Shannon Estuary sailor told Afloat.

A 2001 six-metre Coastline RIB with a Honda 115hp engine at £4,560 and a 2005 Dell Quay 560 with Honda 90hp engine at £5, 640 were paid for online but the Irish customer grew suspicious when emails then went unanswered. 

"He wasn’t getting back to me so I said I’d cancel the money and send a friend to the UK address and they told him it was a scam", the man told Afloat.

Fortunately, the Irish boater contacted his bank and managed to stop the payment going through.

He has since completed further research online and discovered the extent of the scam that may already have caught two or three Irish boaters.

The matter has been reported to the Garda.

Online comments indicate that a fraudulent site is using legitimate UK company details to perpetrate an "Authorised Push Payments Scam".