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Aircraft sales scam??

N395V

N395V

Well Known Member
I have several aircraft for sale and am being flooded with weird sounding e mail requests from the UK wanting specs and photos by e mail along with directions on how to find me to see the plane tomorrow or the next day. They are all in broken English.

Obviously no one is going to visit Mississippi from England tomorrow and the thought of shipping an RV or Rocket across the pond should deter anyone from even inquiring.

Anyone else experienced this??????????????? :confused:
 
The scammers send you a fake casher's check and it take 4 - 8 weeks to bounce. In the mean time you have sent the RV ( or what ever they are scamming this week) by sea container never to be seen again.

NEVER accept a casher's or certified check unless you verify the check number and the amount with the bank of origin. If the bank is closed (weekend) so it the transaction until you can verify the check.

The buyer of your plane (or what ever) can have the funds wired directly into your account. This is the preferred way to do things with large purchases / sales IMHO.

With today's computers, scanners, and technology I can make a fake certified check in about 5 mins. There are even web sites where you can "buy" certified checks in any amount for $30.

Lets be careful out there.
 
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Hey Milt,

I get these emails ALL THE TIME at work from Europe to South America to India. I have airplanes from 152's to Learjet's for sale, and these emails come in daily. I just ignore them. If it's a real buyer, a phone call will follow the email. Even then, I'm ALWAYS leery and proceed with much caution.
 
Yep...Geico's advise is on the money.

I really, REALLY hate scammers like that and I just jerk them around when they contact me. It's actually quite fun. If they're wasting their time on me that's time they can't spend scamming some unsuspecting senior citizen.

Some folks have made a full-time job of baiting scam artists and turning the tables on them. If you're having a slow day at work and want a good read, check out http://www.419eater.com/. It's done with with typical British comedic flare. :)
 
The other scam is to show up with a fake cashiers check for the full amount of the plane. Then after a bit of negotiation a new price is reached which is a bit less then the asking value but the seller is none the less happy with.

The scammer then hands over the cashiers check and asks for the difference in cash.

These scams happen with local con-artists as well as overseas fellows so be warry even when dealling with locals.
 
I just recently had a guy send me a REAL check from a major US tobacco company in the amount of $690,000.80 for two Bonanza's that totalled $465,000. He wanted the overpayment balance to be split between the TWO of us for comissions, so I would end up with illegal and non-sufficient funds.

Turns out after some research that this check was written by the tobacco company in the amount of $12.80, and was already processed before this guy in Canada got ahold of it somehow and changed the amount.

To top it off, the airplanes were to be flown to Guatamala. Seriously. This guy had ALL the answers.
 
I would be tempted to report this to the "Homeland Security Dept" ??? You just never know what may be up?
 
There's a scam for every ad ever created I think. We ran a babysitter wanted ad in our local online classifieds a few weeks ago and got a ton of scam e-mails saying (in the typical poorly written english) that they were going to be working temporarily in our location and wanted to hire us to watch their kids at a really high fee--we would deposit their check for more than the agreed upon amount and send them cash to pay for their travel to the states. Probably a lot of 18 year old kids falling for the scam.

Mike
 
What $#&$#(&#

Isn't the Internet wonderful. The criminals have found it and use it. The Internet has been around in some form or another for decades, but only since about 1996 has it taken off. In just 10 years they have infected it. I get at least 2-5 emails a week from Nigerian, please help me with my millions from a dead relative. They take great pride in scamming. In Nigeria its a point of national pride and they have songs about it.

The other thing that got me was Iran and the 15 Brit sailors, thankfully returned today! Last week the Iranian propagandist held up a little cheap Gramin GPS and said they where in our area. Hummmm using American satellites and American equip? I hate that.

America does all kinds of things (like invent the internet and GPS) and the world benefits. What do we get? Scam emails and Garmin GPS's used to claim dubious military actions.

Here are some places to report:

Local Police and State DA
http://www.fraud.org/
Western Union
Interpole

Also pull up the Full Header of the Email and find the IP address and do a look up. Go to this or any IP address look up site:

http://www.webyield.net/domainquery.html

It will give you the provider, provider address and country of origin. You can write the Net provider or contact the country of origin.

I tracked a few down, made all the reports. Not sure what happens. They got back to me but if you are not out money, than they really are not going to do much for you, but at least reporting may lead to their being caught.

I do know the Gamin 496 scam on ebay last year from eastern Europe was shut down. That involved Western Union, and I called them. They are very interested in fraud and take your call serious, if it involves using Western Union. They will arrest them right there, but the issue is they have "runners" pick-up the money with fake ID's. The main players never show up. They are clever and any way they can be caught, they try to counter.
 
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No checks no wired checks

Geico266 said:
The scammers send you a fake casher's check and it take 4 - 8 weeks to bounce. In the mean time you have sent the RV ( or what ever they are scamming this week) by sea container never to be seen again.
NEVER accept a casher's or certified check unless you verify the check number and the amount with the bank of origin. If the bank is closed (weekend) so it the transaction until you can verify the check.
The buyer of your plane (or what ever) can have the funds wired directly into your account. This is the preferred way to do things with large purchases / sales IMHO.
With today's computers, scanners, and technology I can make a fake certified check in about 5 mins. There are even web sites where you can "buy" certified checks in any amount for $30.

Answ: Wrong. Never spread around account info. Instead of funds coming in, funds can go out. I get most of my scams from Africa, and they top their ridiculous stories when you don't respond.
Click to expand...
 
Geico266 said:
The scammers send you a fake casher's check and it take 4 - 8 weeks to bounce. In the mean time you have sent the RV ( or what ever they are scamming this week) by sea container never to be seen again.

NEVER accept a casher's or certified check unless you verify the check number and the amount with the bank of origin. If the bank is closed (weekend) so it the transaction until you can verify the check.

The buyer of your plane (or what ever) can have the funds wired directly into your account. This is the preferred way to do things with large purchases / sales IMHO.

With today's computers, scanners, and technology I can make a fake certified check in about 5 mins. There are even web sites where you can "buy" certified checks in any amount for $30.

Lets be careful out there.
Click to expand...

Be careful with the wired funds. It is not like in the movies, depending on the bank and the type of account, they can call the amount that they sent, back to their account and say that the first one was a mistake.

This has not happened to me but our bank warned that even with a wire transfer there is a clearing time. Check with YOUR bank!

This all could happen after you have verified your balance.

Check with YOUR bank!
 
You can, and should, for any transaction like this - but the scammers will be in "too much of a hurry" to wait for that.
 
Be careful

Yes, I get these type of emails all the time. Sometimes, ASO or Controller will advise me that this person is 'actively pursuing' a target. Sad times.

Tim
 
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