Heads up to those people selling planes in the Texas, Arazona, Southern California area.
I placed a bid on a nice 150 being sold on ebay and bid 2k over Vref because it was in great shape. I received a notification from ebay that the seller canselled my bid and found another email from the seller explaining why. Apparently someone showed up at the sellers airport in Tyler Texas and offered another 3k over my already high bid on the spot. The seller was so happy he canselled the ebay auction and agreed to close the sale with this other guy the next day with a bank certified check. The next day the buyer and seller met and when the seller told the buyer he still needed to wait until the check cleared, he flipped out, grabbed the check out of the sellers hand and left. The seller had made a copy of the check along with the other paperwork, got suspisious and called the police. Turned out the check was computer generated and the routing numbers were fake. When the phone number on the check was dialed, a spanish speaking person knew nothing and was wondering why his number was on the check. This person is still at large probably looking to buy another plane in the area so sellers look out.
N11810 will probably show back up on ebay soon. The seller emailed me and asked if I was still interested but I'm closing on a different one this Friday. (I just looked on ebay and there is a very nice 59 150 for 15k)
I don' think ebay is the right place to buy or sell a plane. To many things need to take place in order to make the sale. Pre-buy, title search... I'll never bid again.
