Complaint Review: Margaret Haskill and a guy named Bobby - Claremont North Carolina

Do not buy any horses from a lady named Margaret Haskill and a guy named Bobby, don't know his last name as he never gave it me.  I saw an ad on Dreamhorse for a nice sounding 13.3 hand pony mare that was kid safe and called a starter package and located in Claremont, NC.  I called and spoke to the lady selling the pony and she was supposedly selling it for the owner, but I don’t think that was the case.

Margaret talked so much and so fast I could barely get a word in edgewise.  She could talk 100 miles an hour and give you every story there was in the book about horses in general.  Anyway, I specifically asked her if the pony was sound and she said yes and I wanted to try it out first but supposedly she was traveling to horse shows a lot to train and show dressage horses and did not have time for that so I took her word and my friend's word and bought the pony anyway. 

My friend has experience in buying horses sight unseen and talked me into buying the pony, although I did pick the pony up myself from Margaret's supposedly hay man named Bobby.  We got there 30 minutes early to pick her up, it was a hot day, she was tied to a horse trailer sweating in the hot sun when we drove up and there is no telling how long she had been tied there.  She seemed fine though at the time we picked her up as I checked her over before putting her in the trailer.

I never met Margaret in person but just this Bobby guy at a barn in Vale, NC. The city in the ad was Claremont, NC and her phone number was from Newton, NC.  I asked Margaret why the pony was stabled there and she told me the owner did not want to see the pony anymore so she moved her to a different barn/farm.

The paperwork was handed over to me in a folder which Margaret said there would be registration papers, etc. in it on this pony.  Everything went quick and we were halfway back home before I realized that the paperwork looked odd as the coggins was actually a color copy of an original and not the original coggins with the date cut off at the bottom.  I had just glanced in the file and saw a yellow paper, coggins, so went on without looking thoroughly.

When I got the pony home she started limping around and I began to wonder.  I had my vet check the coggins and it had been falsified, per the attending vet, the coggins was done 3 years prior and out of date.  I thought it had just expired as Margaret said she was going to have her coggins updated but I came and got her before she could do that.  The 2007 on the coggins was changed to a 2009 and it was obvious after thoroughly examining it.

Long story short, I was rushed with the whole thing when picking up the mare pony and Margaret sold me a pony that was lame, with an invalid coggins that might just be for a different horse as the markings did not quite totally match, and the papers were not registration papers but papers to have her registered and I could not get any info. from the the name on those papers either.

Margaret also sold a Black TWH mare as well because when I came home that night with the pony mare she had already changed the ad on the internet as I went back to look for the phone number and it had transposed into a black TWH mare.  In a couple of days the ad was deleted entirely.

I was trying to be nice and give the benefit of the doubt but I had a bad feeling about the whole mess.  The number was different on the new ad and no one would answer but luckily I had printed out the ad for the pony I bought with her phone number on it and the TWH ad as well, and I still have it and other documentation so that if anything arises I have proof of what she did.

I did speak to Margaret the next day after getting the pony and she said when she got back in town from a horse show she would give me my money back and take the pony back.  She never called back and her phone number became invalid so I think she changed it and the same thing turned out with the guy named Bobby. He did not call me back and he disappeared and disconnected his phone number.

I spoke with the lady that owned the barn where I picked the pony up and she said she was leasing the barn and land and that she knew nothing but would ask the people leasing the property.  She never called back with any info. either so I gave up at the time as I had to deal with my aging parents but now I am ready to get some things straight and hope I can at least stop someone else from making the same mistake I did.

I got scammed out of $1200.00 for a lame pony with a falsified coggins and registration papers.  I don't recommend buying from anyone in that city or surrounding as the Vale horse auction is there and that is where I think this pony came from instead of the sob story that Margaret gave me on her.  It was probably all made up just to get rid of the lame pony at my expense.

This was an expensive lesson learned for me so Buyer Beware of people like this.  Have the horse vetted and make sure that all the paperwork has the right dates, markings of the horse, etc. on it, and for goodness sake get a bill of sale with the first and last names of the sellers and a valid address so you will have something to go on just in case!

Signed,