jcaplins

jcaplins

Well Known Member
I'm looking to sell a C-152 to pay for more parts of the RV7 kit, and flight instruction.

Almost all inquries I've had are from outside the US. Brazil, Columbia, Venezuala, England, India....
Is there a lot of scamming activity going on with aircraft sales nowadays?

I'm not opposed to selling overseas, and I'm sure the paperwork may be a nightmare. but...
I get worried about vauge requests like: "Send me the full specs", refering the the aircraft as "unit", and asking questions as if they never read the ad.

Anyone else in the same situation? Would like to know how you handled it.
 
I think it's a scam. I have been dealing with one of those guys for over a month with no payment. I just don't know what they are trying to get.
 
Not necessarily a scam

We do a lot of exporting of aircraft, and 152s and 172s are high on the list for overseas flight schools right now. I have 3 different legit customers, who we've shipped to before, looking for 152s.

Email or call me and I'll see if I can help you weed out the players.
 
jcaplins said:
I'm looking to sell a C-152 to pay for more parts of the RV7 kit, and flight instruction.

Almost all inquries I've had are from outside the US. Brazil, Columbia, Venezuala, England, India....
Is there a lot of scamming activity going on with aircraft sales nowadays?

I'm not opposed to selling overseas, and I'm sure the paperwork may be a nightmare. but...
I get worried about vauge requests like: "Send me the full specs", refering the the aircraft as "unit", and asking questions as if they never read the ad.

Anyone else in the same situation? Would like to know how you handled it.
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A few years ago, I sold my C-150. Starting in July of that year, I advertised on Barnstormers and in TAP. Almost immediately, I was receiving overseas e-mail offers a few of which promised more than my asking price, sight unseen to boot. Yeah, sure. It is a virtual certainty such offers are completely fraudulent.

Interesting thing about sales. Timing is everything. Other than those bogus offers, I got very little response for my advertising dollars. I attributed that to asking far more than a 1966F model is normally priced at. One could buy a C-172 for what I was asking. Still, my 150 was in exceptional condition and I knew it. Month after month went by with an occasional call here, an e-mail nibble there. Nothing. Fast forward two weeks before Christmas that year. Now this is what flys in the face of all reason, at least to me. It was like someone removed a blocker from my phone line. All of a sudden the telephone started ringing constantly. I'd come home after stepping out for a few hours and there would be 6 messages on the answering machine. I was fielding calls left and right. Within days, the Texas buyer flew commercial into STL to see the plane. He could not test fly it that day because a luck would have it, it was so bitterly cold the battery went dead after a few tries at engine starting. Still, the airline pilot buyer left a good faith deposit and returned a few days later to pay the full asking price and flew the bird home. He bought it to teach his 16-year old son how to fly.

Ordinarily, I would think such interest would not be all that noteworthy.....but right before Christmas? Go figure.

Upshot: After 22 months of ownership, the Texas buyer sold the 150 as partial payment on a Kentucky built RV-8. Understandably, the Kentucky seller had little interest in a 150 and within days of advertising it in TAP sold the 150 to a student pilot of the fairer sex located near Dover, Delaware where the airplane now resides. Long live the 150! Oh the stories it could tell. :)
 
smokenjoe50 said:
The person that has been contacting me uses the name Mr. LAMART A. SMITH and his email is [email protected] I am sure he is a scam I just don't know what he is after.
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A lot of these scammers try to gain your confidence as a serious buyer, then will suggest an escrow service to use, which looks real on line and may even have a phone number with someone to answer with the escrow service name,,,,,but they turn out to be part of the scam and disappear. These types of scams usually work well with small mailable items and I don't know how they would do it with an airplane. I would be very careful.
 
scams

From what I've heard, they will send a bogus money order or some such for more than the transaction value, and request the difference be paid to some third party (someone in on the scam). The unsuspecting buyer gets the MO, deposits it, thinks everything is okay, and send out the check. A few days or weeks later, the bank calls and tells them the money order was fraudulent...
 
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Legit overseas transactions always involve wire transfers, which are secure. When we ship planes overseas, we get the money cleared into our accounts before we even start disassembling the aircraft. By the time the container leaves, we would know if there was a problem. We've never been burned yet, using this method.
 
Thanks all

David:

AH HA, I did get a request from a "[email protected]". Teh phone number was out of England. I considered that one a scam right way. Because it only asked for pictures and price, which were in the ad. I responded with curt remark and a link back to the ad. Maybe a little rude on my part, but oh well.

From Venezuela, asked me to bring the plane to Miami. No talk of cost, engine/airframe logs, or anything else. I said, I can't. He said he will arrange a trip to Richmond. Haven?t heard back.

From Brazil: This is probably legit. Asked for logbooks, called me on phone. Been a few weeks, haven't heard back.

I am not basing my skepticism solely on location of buyer. I've heard of plenty of scams from within the US.

Ray:
PM to be sent.

Craig:
Will send a PM.
 
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