Did you not have proof of sale?
There were 6 pages of legal documents telling me what a bad person I was and how much money they wanted. If I remember it was about $3000 for a sinking, striped 19” sailboat, no motor, not even a cleat. Luckily I had traded it into a dealer who came to my area to get the boat. State marine board had a paper trail and cleaned up the problem by phone. The sheriffs dept that made the claim had access to the records but only went as far as my name.
Evidently the dealer sold it to someone in Washington state who never declared it so they wouldn’t have to pay sales tax on it. They left Oregon numbers on it.
I usually don’t keep receipts for 20 years. I will when I sell my big boat. If I ever f