SCAM Warning

[Aljst]

Reaching out to the local aviation group with a community advisory in the hopes to avoid someone else getting deceived or scammed.

About 2 weeks ago I was contacted by cloudcutterr_at_gmail.com, not sure what his name is, may be Lance Morgan with an offer to buy a headset.

After asking for pictures and having an email exchange, we agreed on a price and was asked to Zelle the funds to harrysills_at_gmail.com, I assume this person's name to be Harry Sills. Was promised tracking info and shipping to occur right away.

As soon as the funds were received, both Lance Morgan and Harry Sills (may be the same person) stop communicating. All subsequent emails have gone un-answered.

Up until now, I thought the aviation community was not affected but this kind of scams and people, and usually keep my guard down, my mistake. I now see that I bear part of the blame for not protecting myself better - lesson learned.

However remote, I still have hopes this to be a misunderstanding, but realistically does not look good.

If anyone here has ever heard of these two individuals, please protect yourself and I appreciate your letting me know any additional information to properly report it to the authorities. If not I will just keep posting my story in all aviation forums as a community service to protect others.

[PeteMc]

Whenever you are buying online (and good to do as a seller too), only use PayPal with their Buyer Protection option. 

Zella does have a reversal process, but it is a case-by-case process.  And odds are the Account that the money went into will be gone by the time it gets to the Zella (or other Pay Apps) review process.  Hopefully all the Pay Apps will get better, but right now it's more like a Debit Card that does not have the same protection as a Credit Card.

 

[Fritz1]

Same guy, slightly different email, got me about 2 months ago with a set of brake cylinders, paid through paypal, declared it a business transaction and got my money back after the guy went silent, lesson learnt: have sellers send pictures that they cannot download from the internet, i.e. showing the product in a specific perspective or together with an additional specified item, could be a AA battery or anything that is not easy to photoshop into the picture with the product to be sold

[DonMuncy]

This is disturbing. As most of you know, I sell a few Mooney specific items, and virtually always ship them to my fellow Mooney owners, with the understanding that they will send me the money. I have been doing this for about 20 years and have never been burned. I know it is different when the recipient is getting money rather than a product, but still, it worries me. Do I need to quit thinking of MSers as almost family and start requiring payment before I ship stuff to you guys.

[midlifeflyer]

This has been rampant in Facebook aviation groups for about 2-3 years. I’ve seen it move into the forums maybe a year ago. That’s maybe because with Facebook, it doesn’t take much to detect a fake profile. 

[Red Leader]

Trust, but verify - if you can

[Bolter]

3 hours ago, DonMuncy said:

This is disturbing. As most of you know, I sell a few Mooney specific items, and virtually always ship them to my fellow Mooney owners, with the understanding that they will send me the money. I have been doing this for about 20 years and have never been burned. I know it is different when the recipient is getting money rather than a product, but still, it worries me. Do I need to quit thinking of MSers as almost family and start requiring payment before I ship stuff to you guys.

It can work both ways when a scammer creates DMunncy@gmail.com, starts selling visors, and asks for money from possible buyers before shipping the product, and then disappears. 

The scammers and hackers are usually a step ahead of us regular folk, and we just try what we can to find them out.  I look back on some purchases through this group and realize I was lucky, not smart, that I was not scammed.  I am happy that there were trustworthy sellers, just as they were probably happy to have a trustworthy buyer.  

Just my thoughts... -dan

[Fly Boomer]

12 hours ago, DonMuncy said:

This is disturbing. As most of you know, I sell a few Mooney specific items, and virtually always ship them to my fellow Mooney owners, with the understanding that they will send me the money. I have been doing this for about 20 years and have never been burned. I know it is different when the recipient is getting money rather than a product, but still, it worries me. Do I need to quit thinking of MSers as almost family and start requiring payment before I ship stuff to you guys.

Seems like PayPal would assuage any concerns.  Usually takes about 5 seconds for funds to show up.

[natdm]

12 hours ago, DonMuncy said:

This is disturbing. As most of you know, I sell a few Mooney specific items, and virtually always ship them to my fellow Mooney owners, with the understanding that they will send me the money. I have been doing this for about 20 years and have never been burned. I know it is different when the recipient is getting money rather than a product, but still, it worries me. Do I need to quit thinking of MSers as almost family and start requiring payment before I ship stuff to you guys.

Honestly I would stop on the big ticket items unless you've sold to them in the past, or you see some sort of history with them online (you know their userId here and trust them). 

17 minutes ago, Aviationist said:

They have been doing this with headsets for many years… to the point aviation headsets are banned on most for sale sites and groups…

+1. This happens all the time and you've just been lucky so far. I see it all the time and it's the worst. No place is safe. Facebook, Ebay, forums, etc. 

Sorry it happened to you. I hate to see it, but you can't be trusting of strangers any more. Those times have come and gone.