Scam Ad for my aircraft
 

I see that my R44 G-NIKX is advertised here -

aircraft for sale, Airplane, classifieds, Helicopter Sales, Used airplanes

The price is keen enough to attract interest. The description is incorrect - mine has no Aircon and has done far fewer hours.

The Ad has attracted 3700+ hits so far.

My attention was drawn to it by a dealer in France, who sent me all the Email exchanges between myself(!) and a potential buyer, keen to buy the thing but frustrated by my lack of response to his various questions.

I contacted the site weeks ago to tell them they were listing a fraudulent Ad. Its still there…. I wonder how widespread this sort of thing is?

I know of an American who bought a UK-based helicopter recently and parted with money, only to discover that it was actually in the USA and…er..not for sale.

Full marks to the scammers if they find somebody stupid enough to part with their money:ok:

HP

Unfortunately quite common:

Another scam: selling a deregistered UK R44
Plane Check - Scammers at work
Another fraudulent sale
G-JJFB sale scam

Sounds like someone needs to set-up a dedicated Ebola Monkey Man site for the aviation industry...

I/C

Happened with my 120 - actually had a few people call me direct as the price was keen.


The site was slow to take it down until I mentioned I had passed their details to UK Police for conspiracy to defraud - it soon went.


UK police were not helpful. First they directed me to a dedicated fraud telephone line. That must be an outsourced system, and because I had not myself parted with money the person on the other end had no interest. Back to UK Police line - no joy, as they told me the fraud line should not have sent me away.


Called a Chief Inspector I know and things were taken a little more seriously after that.


Not seen my aircraft "for sale" for some time now.

not the only dodgy one?
 

looking at a few of the adverts for Helicopters on this site produces either keenly priced adverts or owners who's details seem a bit strange.
ie a 120 priced at 500K$ or a 44 where the owners name is both sir name and first name.
i would suggest looking them up on G-INFO and contacting direct or maybe just giving the deposit to charity - better than keeping some scammer in pocket money for a few months !

I was tempted by a certain type of microlight at a 'bargain' price. I tried the web address of the 'vendor' and found it didn't exist so informed the magazine where I had seen the ad.
They came back with 'disregard, it's a scam'.
Apparently the advertiser doesn't own the aircraft; he asks for a deposit before you go and see it and thereafter cannot be contacted.
However in this case, I did get an e-mail reply saying he worked on an oil rig and wasn't on the mainland too often.

My brother offered his car for sale on Gumtree recently and was contacted via text by someone "working overseas" who wanted to send him far more than the car was worth, so he could pay a "courier"....it's all too prevalent and unfortunately too many people still get burnt by such lowlife.

Sigh - caveat emptor

Heli for sale scam
 

We regularly get contacted (normally by an over keen agent trying to become the sole-agent to sell it) by someone trying to do a side deal a few times every year, pointing out that it's already for sale on so and so website.

So of course we contact the website and they ignore us as we were not the person that posted it ! Ironic but sensible.

Try telling the police "so there hasn't been an actual crime committed then" or "action fraud" or anyone else - forget it.

So the obvious question is - why wouldn't you give it a go if nobody is interested in dealing with it at source ?

CC