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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".

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About Match Racing

A match race is a race between two competitors, going head-to-head.

In yacht racing, it is differentiated from a fleet race, which almost always involves three or more competitors competing against each other, and team racing where teams consisting of 2, 3 or 4 boats compete together in a team race, with their results being combined.

A match race consists of two identical boats racing against each other. With effective boat handling and clever use of wind and currents, a trailing boat can escape the grasp of the leader and pass. The leader uses blocking techniques to hold the other boat back. This one-on-one duel is a game of strategy and tactics.

About the World Match Racing Tour

Founded in 2000, the World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) promotes the sport of match racing around the world and is the longest running global professional series in the sport of sailing. The WMRT is awarded ‘Special Event’ status by the sport’s world governing body – World Sailing – and the winner of the WMRT each year is crowned World Sailing Match Racing World Champion. Previous champions include Sir Ben Ainslie (GBR), Taylor Canfield (USA), Peter Gilmour (AUS), Magnus Holmberg (SWE), Peter Holmberg (ISV), Adam Minoprio (NZL), Torvar Mirsky (AUS), Bertrand Pace (FRA), Jesper Radich (DEN), Phil Robertson (NZL) and Ian Williams (GBR). Since 2000, the World Match Racing Tour and its events have awarded over USD23million in prize money to sailors which has helped to contribute to the career pathway of many of today’s professional sailors