This has been in the "news" lately.
The way it works seems to be facilitated by the triviality of putting up an advert on any of the common plane-selling websites. Then you ask for a deposit before the plane can be viewed.
The problem is that many genuine sellers also ask for deposits. I think that is bizzare. If I was selling a plane I would knock up a detailed website with all the stuff on it, and photograph the maintenance logbooks and make them into PDFs and email those to anybody who asks.
I get contacted by a fair number of people who want to buy a TB20. A few years ago I was asked about an advert for G-HOOD which is a real TB20GT allright. The seller wanted a £10000 deposit. Obviously I told anyone to walk away... But those interested had real problems verifying whether the advert was genuine, and to this day I am not sure if it was or wasn't. I eventually heard from somebody who did manage to contact the seller (or whoever seemed to be the seller; with email you never know) and he denied it was for sale. There were some curious circumstances on that one e.g. the seller claimed it was based at Heathrow EGLL; this seemed implausible since EGLL kicked out all GA many years ago and bans SE ops, but you can never be sure because there are PA28s based at Farnborough, under some historic concession, who obviously don't pay the ~£300 landing fee.
On a tangential topic, there is (or used to be, till recently) a procedure for stealing somebody's house, in the UK, by impersonating a solicitor when communicating with the Land Registry. The real owner of the house would actually lose the legal title to the house and had to go to huge hassle to get it back. It used to be done with unoccupied houses mostly...
[Note: G-HOOD did eventually sell, for real, but quite possibly a number of people lost money to the scammer because the real owner was hard to contact]
That guy that bought the Learjet from a museum and was flying it in Germany for over a year without CoA, pilot license and maintenance until crashing in Denmark, made his money in a similar way. He advertised rare high price aviation spare parts for competitive prices and then asked for upfront payment. You put up some non existing Airbus part for 100 000 € which normally costs 150 000 € and people will be happy to send you the money, thinking they made a great deal.
Is it really common practise for genuine sellers to ask for a deposit BEFORE you view the aircraft? If anyone asked me for that I'd walk away on a matter of principle.
The Americans have the expression "tyre kicker":
(n.) A person who appears interested in buying your car, but on the day displays any of the following traits.
• Does not show up
• Does not bring money
• Kicks the tyres and complains about even the most minor faults
• Seems to know barely anything about the car
• Offers stupid money (a large amount either side of what you expected)
• Keeps asking if he can part exchange his rusty old Ford for your car, not wondering why anyone wouldn't want it
• Assumes the car is in fine working condition just by kicking the tyres
• Tries to drive a restoration project dozens of miles home with him.
• Asks questions repeatedly, specifically ones mentioned in adevertising the car
• Gets the manufacturers' name wrong
• Asks if you are willing to transport the car without charge.
• Makes a bid for a car placed on ebay or similar without any positive feedback
• Dresses up as, or asserts that they are a priest or mulla in an attempt to pay less for the car
• Is a young driver who just passed his test looking to buy a cheap old car, rice it up, and show off to thier friends. Quite likely to wreck it in a month.
I can understand refusing a test flight without a deposit, but to demand one before a viewing is too much. Tyre kickers go with the territory - if your time is so valuable that you want to avoid them, pay an agent to sell your aircraft. Anyone who pays a deposit to secure a viewing reminds me of the old adage "a fool and his money are soon parted."
That said, there are plenty of fools around. One of my friends sold his TB10 to someone who paid a substantial deposit up front before he had even seen the aircraft or documentation, and the rest on delivery. The aircraft was in fact sound, but the buyer had no way to know that.
