Someone is selling my airplane

tmyers

tmyers

En-Route
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
4,641
Location
Kettering, OH
Display Name
Tim Myers
Ok guys and gals, this one really frosted me yesterday.

I have not been on TAP for months and am not sure why I chose to go there yesterday. I was checking out the Piper Arrows for sale and comparing the asking prices with my airplane when I saw a 1977 Arrow with the same paint scheme as mine. It looked exactly like mine, wait a minute it is mine.:yikes:

My airplane was listed for sale and my name is at the bottom of the ad. It was listed at about $15,000 less than mine is worth. I tried the phone number and there was no answer.

Within a couple minutes a pilot friend e-mails me and says he had seen my airplane advertised on ASO, his comment was "say it isn't so".

Contacted both sites and they promptly removed the adds and are trying to find out who listed it. They chalked it up to another scam.

The pictures were off of an archived ad from the broker I bought the plane through and of course the FAA registry would provide a name for them to use.

The only way I can see anyone making money from this sort of trickery would be to ask for a holding fee or deposit to make sure someone else didn't purchase the aircraft while the new owner makes arrangements to come see it. This is where my name can get trashed as they drive or fly to Dayton Ohio to look at my airplane, thinking the $500 they sent is in my pocket.

I am not sure how to protect myself from these activities. I thought about calling the Broker and asking them to remove all mention of my aircraft from their archives but once this info is on the internet I don't know if they can do anything about it.

Thoughts?
 
This isn't uncommon. It's been going on with cars for a while. They grab an old for sale ad and realist it with a "too good to be true" price and scam the person who tries to buy it.
 
flyingron said:
This isn't uncommon. It's been going on with cars for a while. They grab an old for sale ad and realist it with a "too good to be true" price and scam the person who tries to buy it.
Click to expand...
Also been going on in the vintage guitar world on ebay for many years.
 
hey!! I want my deposit back tim!
 
Hey why don't you tell them what you were really looking for huh?
 
No worries with that on my plane! It's ugly enough no one would want to buy it.
 
So Geico is admitting to a secret love for the Arrow???????

And before Matt can say it I was looking at RV's. Already thinking of a retirement aircraft!!!

Hey I could trade with Geico!!!!

Ed, your Comanche is beautiful, do not tell her you called her ugly.
 
tmyers said:
Ed, your Comanche is beautiful, do not tell her you called her ugly.
Click to expand...

I know you weren't flying the day you saw her, but how much were you drinking?!?!?!?
 
These scams have been going on for a long time. One of my friends has a very nice Toyota Supra that others tried to sell a few times.

Thanks for the report, I'll need to look for the 310 for sale.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
These scams have been going on for a long time. One of my friends has a very nice Toyota Supra that others tried to sell a few times.

Thanks for the report, I'll need to look for the 310 for sale.
Click to expand...

I already made the deposit.
 
tmyers said:
The only way I can see anyone making money from this sort of trickery would be to ask for a holding fee or deposit to make sure someone else didn't purchase the aircraft while the new owner makes arrangements to come see it. This is where my name can get trashed as they drive or fly to Dayton Ohio to look at my airplane, thinking the $500 they sent is in my pocket.
Click to expand...

Through the miracles of the internet, they can even create a working phone number that comes back to an exchange that matches your physical location. Pretty simple scam, with the price 15k below market, all they need to pick up is 2-3 $500 deposits before they disappear.

A friend of mine deals in aircraft and has been at the other end (prospective buyer) of that scam a couple of times. As a sophisticated buyer, the scams are easy to spot:
- a sob-story on how someone (uncle, brother in law) lost their medical but the plane is in pristine condition
- a location of the plane that doesn't match the location of the 'seller' (plane got 'stranded', hangars are cheaper, there is allways a somewhat plausible story)
- a plane that is supposedly stuck due to the owner not having a medical but if you have a flightaware alert on it will move all over the place on IFR flight plans.
- a seller who knows exactly the information in the ad but not one bit more to questions most owners would answer without thinking (does the 430 have terrain or not ?, has SBxxx* been complied with ?).
- payment arrangements that are on the face very beneficial for the buyer but atypical for aircraft transactions (anything involving scam-pal or western union).
- a seller who backs out the moment the buyer offers to have his buddy (me) just come by and eyeball the plane for him prior to wiring the deposit.

The aircraft he deals with are entry level trainers. For him, the scams are just a nuisance, but I can see how some PPL student who is not familiar with how aircraft are bought and sold could be taken for a $500 or $1000 deposit.

Another slightly different take on the scam is where brokers take information on aircraft offered for sale informally (through postings on bulletin boards) and list them on their website or on barnstormers for a price below market. Once they take a deposit on the plane, they approach the owner with a 'cash offer' even below their already depressed price. If the owner bites, they cash in on the difference.
 
It is probably a scam. The first thing that came to my mind was you don't have an angry ex wife lurking around somewhere? :dunno:
 
We had someone use a 210 to try and scam us,

It needed to be trucked in for repairs.

"So can you please charge this card for the towing fee then send a money order to the towing yard so they can deliver it?"

No.
 
One of the big TAP King Air brokers tried that trick on us. I happened to be reading the ads and saw the listing for our plane, so I called him and tried to buy it. Made him spend the better part of a week negotiating the deal before asking him a question I was pretty sure he couldn't answer. When he failed, I told him "never mind, just hold the line for a couple of minutes while I walk out in the hangar to get the information for you." He hung up.
 
wabower said:
One of the big TAP King Air brokers tried that trick on us. I happened to be reading the ads and saw the listing for our plane, so I called him and tried to buy it. Made him spend the better part of a week negotiating the deal before asking him a question I was pretty sure he couldn't answer. When he failed, I told him "never mind, just hold the line for a couple of minutes while I walk out in the hangar to get the information for you." He hung up.
Click to expand...

:rofl:
 
wabower said:
One of the big TAP King Air brokers tried that trick on us. I happened to be reading the ads and saw the listing for our plane, so I called him and tried to buy it. Made him spend the better part of a week negotiating the deal before asking him a question I was pretty sure he couldn't answer. When he failed, I told him "never mind, just hold the line for a couple of minutes while I walk out in the hangar to get the information for you." He hung up.
Click to expand...

Should have called back from a different line and done it again.
 
Btw. If they indeed put your name on the bottom of the ad and pretended to be you, what they did is covered under the terms 'identity theft' and 'attempted wire-fraud'. If you have an assistant DA in your community who wants to improve his credentials in the white-collar crime arena, it may be worth filing a police report and getting the ball rolling that way. If TAP is less than enthusiastic to help you, certified letters from the DAs office tend to get more attention. TAP has information on the scamster, a credit card number to buy the ad, a billing address associated with it etc.

From my contact with this side of the scam business, it is not some nigerian kid in an internet cafe but rather people living right here who are to one extent or another part of the GA community. Sure, the trail could go to russia and run cold in a hurry, but it may just lead to someone in the office of the broker who had your plane listed in the past.
 
tmyers said:
I have not been on TAP for months and am not sure why I chose to go there yesterday. I was checking out the Piper Arrows for sale and comparing the asking prices with my airplane when I saw a 1977 Arrow with the same paint scheme as mine. It looked exactly like mine, wait a minute it is mine.
Click to expand...

Not an uncommon scam. When we put our first house on the market as a rental last year, it also popped up on craigslist for about $200 less than our price with different contact information. Their goal is get someone to give them a deposit, then they split.

We addressed it with craigslist and the police so there was a record of fraud if someone showed up one day and tried to claim the right to live there.
 
Yup fairly common. I was on a vintage car sales ad a while back and recall the Lamborghini being sold by an Orlando seller. The picture of the car was very nicely done - except for the 9000' mountains in the background and the German license plates on the car.

Pure scam, get over it.
 
tmyers said:
I tried the phone number and there was no answer.
Click to expand...


Look at the bright side. At least you didn't answer when you called the number. That would have been awkward.
 
Next time this happens, we should get a bunch of PoA'ers to call incessantly.
 
problem is that they never answered the phone, I had a froend email the guys and he has had no response. But then I had the ads shut down within a few hours of them going live so they had probably figured out someone was on to them.
 
Skylane81E said:
Should have called back from a different line and done it again.
Click to expand...

I'd consider Wayne's voice to be pretty distinctive. Simply using a different line probably wouldn't be sufficient disguise.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
These scams have been going on for a long time. One of my friends has a very nice Toyota Supra that others tried to sell a few times.

Thanks for the report, I'll need to look for the 310 for sale.
Click to expand...

I had a Supra for 8 years, can't count on one hand how many times it was "For Sale"...
 
I was honest with the guy. When we discussed his alleged listing I told him we would be very interested in owning such a plane. I didn't feel compelled to tell him we already owned it, because I assumed he knew somebody else did and the true owner's identity obviously didn't matter much to him anyway.
Ted DuPuis said:
I'd consider Wayne's voice to be pretty distinctive. Simply using a different line probably wouldn't be sufficient disguise.
Click to expand...
 
Hmmm. . . a deposit for an airplane they don't have to sell.

Now where have I heard about that scam before? :D
 
I also am surprised this is so prevalent. What percentage of the ads do you think are frauds? Perhaps the used market is healthier than we think it is?!!
 
LDJones said:
I also am surprised this is so prevalent. What percentage of the ads do you think are frauds? Perhaps the used market is healthier than we think it is?!!
Click to expand...

It's a very small % of ads that are fraudulent, but it happens on a lot of bigger ticket items. One of the more famous, or infamous was on Craigslist: 2005 to 2007 Toyota Tocoma with 60-70K miles, a pretty popular used truck and in a good price range. They would be in the military getting transferred and the military was offering free shipping since he couldn't take it with him overseas. It was a must sell situation, last minute transfer and all. :rolleyes: since he was desperate to sell he was letting it go for $3700.00! :yes: You could wire the money to an "escrow service" that would hold the funds until you authorized them to be released! :D
The key to this scam is people's greed, they want to take advantage of the situation before somebody else does!:mad2:
It's still around, they were using an nice looking early Bronco, worth about $8-10K, for $3700.00
 
I notified Ebay at least a half-dozen times about the German 430W that was being advertised for $3,700 to 4,500 depending on which scam was active. eBay would dutifully pull the ad and a week later it would reappear.

N747JB said:
It's a very small % of ads that are fraudulent, but it happens on a lot of bigger ticket items. One of the more famous, or infamous was on Craigslist: 2005 to 2007 Toyota Tocoma with 60-70K miles, a pretty popular used truck and in a good price range. They would be in the military getting transferred and the military was offering free shipping since he couldn't take it with him overseas. It was a must sell situation, last minute transfer and all. :rolleyes: since he was desperate to sell he was letting it go for $3700.00! :yes: You could wire the money to an "escrow service" that would hold the funds until you authorized them to be released! :D
The key to this scam is people's greed, they want to take advantage of the situation before somebody else does!:mad2:
It's still around, they were using an nice looking early Bronco, worth about $8-10K, for $3700.00
Click to expand...
 
I found my Chevy LUV for sale before. At first I thought my wife was ****ed at me. I called the guy, talked about 20 minuets, then told him to take my truck off the ad, contacted Craigslist and it was gone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top