Club Homepage Forums Classified Ads Buy & Sell - Everything But Airplanes Paranoia?

First, I'll apologize for this not being 150/152 related. But it does involve aircraft so I would appreciate your indulgence. I am presently selling a Fisher FP-202 Koala. The present asking price is $8,500.00. I have been exchanging messages with a fellow for a week or so. I have been pretty insistant of wanting the buyer to inspect the aircraft first before any money changes hands. Following is his last message. It is copy and pasted as written. I would appreciate comment on it:

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Ok your method of payment is ok by me, but for the inspection of the plane i talk to an engineer who is a friend and what he said is that he will also like to see the plane so i have decided that we are going to be the two coming for the inspect, so i will send you a check, as you said that you have a lot of people asking you to sell the plane for them i will send you the two check as you state in your mail, but one of the check will been $4,500 and the other one will carry $5000, and you will be sending balance on each to my that my friend who in an engineer in canada to pay for his transpotation to come over to your place.

Please i will like to tell you that the payment will be send to you very soon and i will be very happy if you can take the ad off net to avoid other interested buyer and also i will like tell you that i and my engineer will be coming as soon as you said that you have receive the payment, so will can now book a date to meet you but i will be coming from north carolina while my friend who is an engineer will be coming from canada and we can both fly the plane together.

So please send me the name that will be on the check and the address that i will send it to, please don't send me a p.o. box address i want your personal house address so that the check can be handover to you in person, and the address must not change to the location of where the plane is, or you can send me the address where the plane is located but let the payment arrive first.

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Am I just being paranoid? You may email me direct with your thoughts and ideas if you do not want to take up Forum space.

Thanks bunches,

You have every right to be paranoid!! DON'T DO THIS!! Go to Saabnet.com [saabnet.com] to read about a similar sounding scam.

Bill:

I do not think that you are being paranoid, smart and on guard are better descriptions. The letter looks suspicious to me for several reasons.

First, you may receive a check from the respective purchaser, and if I under stand correctly, you are being requested to forward a balance of $1,000 to an address in Canada. Should the first check be fraudulent, you could be out of a $1,000. Timing is important for this fraud to work. If you receive a check on Friday, deposit it on Friday or Saturday, you could discover that the check is bad after you have issued a check. Several car dealerships in this area have been burnt in the manner. A well groomed and dressed purchase(s) consummate the purchase a car on a Friday, after the banks are closed. A bogus Cashier?s Check is presented as payment, and the purchasers drive off the lot with the new car. The new car will like have it?s VIN changed during the weekend, and could be exported by Monday morning.

If the first check is good, a second check maybe tendered at time of purchase. The second check could be bogus. Good luck trying to locate and sue a hard to locate target in Canada. The defense argument would be that the purchase price was the value of the first check less expenses. The second check? Heck, we don?t know anything about it. It would note even get that far due to the expense of trying to recover a smaller sum of money.

It is also very troubling that there is a stipulation that only your home address be used. A threat to persons in their home by unknown persons can be intimidating.

As an after thought. In many parts of the world the benefits of the electronic age has been used to perpetrate fraud. A lot of very bright persons with lots of skill, knowledge, and time on their hands spent lots of time dreaming up way to obtain bank accounts and other ID information. A very good living could be made if the stolen sums are below the floor where the Feds will become involved. The chance of getting caught are reduced when international boarders are involved and the identities of the perpetrators cannot be adequately determined. Authentic looking ID?s are another dark benefit of computers and sophisticated home office printers and copiers.

My gut instincts tell me that this is a CON, be careful.

Please keep us informed.

This is a classic example of a scam that is going around. It is especially targeted at airplanes, collectable tractors, and collectable autos.

The English is poor and it is not well written. They want you to send money to someone out of the country so they can come to inspect the airplane.

I would not even bother to reply to a message like this one, it is a waste of your time.

I'm seeing this same scan described on the ytmag.com discussion board (yesterdays tractors magazine).

Charles

I agree. This is a scam. I have got dozens of similar type emails when I was trying to sell a car on the internet. Same scam, poorly written emails. They want to send you the check(s) via courier so as to avoid postal fraud also. (I only give out a PO box for cases like this). Ask them for the bank/account numbers of the check and for detailed buyers information if you want to ?play along? some. (If they give it to you, contact the FBI). Usually, they quickly disappear after to get inquisitive.

This is called a "Nigerian scam". I got hit with it when I tried to sell my radio on Ebay last month. The [censored] put in a winning bid of $350, then said he'd send a cashier's check for $500 and wanted me to send him back $150; said a friend of his in the area would come pick up the radio. When I asked for his friend's name, address, and phone number, his stream of email abruptly stopped. That same guy created a new ID each day on Ebay, then bid/won hundreds of auctions per day, mostly high-dollar items like cars and motorcycles. Then he contacted the sellers with his scam.

There was a warnning io AOPA Pilot about this last month!!!
I think they wanted to know if anone ran into this.
DO NOT DO THIS!!
RUN AWAY!

Definately be paranoid and don't communicate with this con artist at all. AOPA member's website has issued a notice for this scam. And, yep, it's probably a Nigerian. I worked in Nigeria a couple of years and this is their way of life. This may no be politicly correct for me to say, but I don't give a crap.

That deal sounds really stupid. I'm surprised it works. They want to buy something and you PAY? What a Bad Start! HA HA!!!!
Why should you do anything? They don't have the time or money so it is up to you to "Help"? They have to pay their "friend" but can't, so you should! They don't have the time, or means but their needy friend does...for a fee? HA HA
Don't ever trust anybody. Always substitute "Aquaintence" or "Associate" for "Friend", it is a better definition. Heck, one is lucky if their wife is a "Friend"! This is basic common sense, but there is a real lack of that going around these days it seems. The fact that this scam works is a credit to P.T. Barnum!

Being in banking I see this stuff all the time. When I was CEO in Reedsport, the old "Nigerian scam" came to surface with a brother of a customer. ("hello, my uncle is secretary of agriculture for African country and we need to get $10,000,000 out of country fast....etc...etc).

Customer bring brother in (brother is going to "protect" himself by setting up an account for the transaction with "only" $500 in it). He shows me the email. I tell him don't do this....He says I only stand to loose $500 and could make millions. I call the US Secret Service office and put them on the speaker phone. The agent says...don't do this, it's a scam. The brother says he is going to do it anyway and wants to open an account. I refuse and sent him anywhere but my bank. Customer reports back later that the brother is angry with everyone who let him "lose" his $500. Oh...he was a used car salesman who was a bit over-extended. His odds would have been better in Reno.

Oh Bill.....in case no one told you <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> This is a scam. You are being cautious, not paranoid. If you respond any more to these people, then you have crossed the line to where I don't want to fly with you anymore as I have to question your good judgement <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Well just kidding on the last part, but you will likely not want to put up with the harrassment I would give you after jumping knowingly into this trap.

It is a common scheme on ebay and other places, and last I heard, these scams were netting something like $2 billion annually from gullible American's...mostly the elderly who have the most to lose.