We've heard rumors that the previous owner of our aircraft was... um... a unique individual, and that most folks who dealt with him were usually annoyed by him. (He was a Marine and kept the ship spic and span, you all know the stereotype...)
My co-owners tell me that if it weren't for the broker, the guy would have completely busted the deal, and might have busted at least one prior offer.
So there's a use for brokers in the world.
The broker I worked for in college calling unsuspecting aircraft owners and asking if they were interested in selling -- was a tool. He posted ads on the bulletin board at the local aviation college offering a reasonable but low price per hour doing airplane selling work (cold calls it turns out) and then supposedly a percentage of every sale. I took the job already having other jobs, but it fit into my schedule one semester.
I know I found him at least one aircraft and possibly two. I never saw a check. I quit after about a month after seeing him show up and offer someone $5000 less than he'd offered on the phone. Roughly 10% of the aircraft price for most aircraft he was dealing in, back in the early 90s.
He had an elaborate but predictable scheme where he'd draw the Cashier's check for a lower price and then five more in $1000 increments. He'd "inspect" the airplane going "hmmm" and "Ohhh" and then say he'd pay the lower amount.
Desperate owners would take it the check. Non-desperate owners would haggle and he'd slowly up the amount and then peel out the appropriate number of Cashier's checks from the wad in his shirt pocket without letting them be seen. All drawn on different banks so he could claim he "didn't have time" to have the money moved into one account. (But he did have time to run to all of those banks, curiously enough.)
He was a scumbag. A very charismatic used-car-salesman type scumbag, IMHO.
Then he'd tap the pool of aviation college students who had their Commercial ratings to ferry the hunk of junk to the next owner's import for inspections. Usually broke CFIs back then. Their pay was the flight time. If they had access to buddy passes from friends or family to get home, those kids got called first.
If he felt the discussions with an owner were going well enough that he'd get the aircraft, he'd immediately place a Trade-A-Plane ad, which back then didn't have photos and hadn't moved to the Internet yet. Cheap way to keep the grist mill running. Just a text ad on Yellow paper. I also remember him taking photos of one aircraft before he actually owned it to send to a prospective buyer. He was careful to get angles that made the N number hard or impossible to read.
I just Googled what I think his name was and found he's still around. I think. I won't name names, don't ask. Not because I wouldn't name the bastard if I knew it was him for certain, but because I'm not sure it's the same guy. Who knows.
They're out there. Just hoping for a sucker.
:wink2: