Interesting N172 for sale on ebay

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Posted By: Tom L.

I used to rant on about this on the Full Count board, but there are a lot of problems with dealing with Canadians if you have a problem. First, if you get screwed, you can take them to court in the U.S. But good luck trying to collect! (Ron Nickerson and his SOB son, Doug I think, family used to own World Wide Gum, don't trust them as far as you can throw them. Anyway, I won a judgement in a Virginia court for some cards I never received. Over $1500 that I sent to Nickerson, and never got my 1936 WWGs. Problem is, I couldn't collect without hiring a lawyer from a state with some kind of reciprocity agreement with Canada - I would have had to hire someone from California, or something along those lines. Bottom line is, I never got my money.)

Second, if you sell to Canadians and deposit a check in your account, even if the check clears, apparently that money can still come back out of your account if they subsequently file bankruptcy. Something about Canadian law that US banks recognize. I used to live in the Pacific Northwest, and a dealer once told me about what he had to do after getting screwed out of a multi-thousand dollar sale to a Canadian: he would set up a bank account just for Canadian customers, and as soon as a check cleared, he would transfer all of the money into another account. I guess they can get at the money in the account where the check was deposited directly, but they can't get at it in any other account of the American seller, and there's nothing they can do if the account has no money in it. [The dealer had around $6,000 taken directly out of his account without his knowledge because the buyer filed bankruptcy in Canada. The dealer didn't get his cards back, and he had no recourse whatsoever.]

Bottom line is, there are crooks on both sides of the border, and Americans definitely gets screwed when it comes to Canadian law.

Tom