Just come across this
The phone number has the right area code for the purported location but the next 6 digits starting with a 1 indicates a virtualised number. The number is dead.
A further clue is a near total lack of any description of the actual unit. Just the usual pig-lazy copy/paste of sales info.
Peter wrote:
next 6 digits starting with a 1 indicates a virtualised number
Is that a general / reliable rule in the UK? Would be useful to know to avoid picking up some nuisance calls.
Historically it was 100% reliable for geographical numbers (those with a UK area code e.g. 01273=Brighton) because of the way the exchanges were wired/programmed.
Today, I think it is still pretty reliable with land numbers.
With mobile numbers you can have anything e.g. 07712 123456 (07712 is originally BT Cellnet later O2 mobile) and it would not surprise me if you could get 07712 000001 
But for filtering incoming calls this is no good because most are presented with all kinds of non geographical numbers.
How can you protect yourself when making that kind of purchase on the Internet? Payment upon delivery?
How can you protect yourself when making that kind of purchase on the Internet? Payment upon delivery?
But then the seller would have no protection. Personally I buy stuff that costs more than 1000 Euros via the internet either from reliable shops, via eBay/PayPal (which offers fairly good protection) or personal handing over. With pre owned electronics there remains of course the risk that the unit is not working.
I am actually looking for a good used SN3500 to keep as a spare.
They keep coming up on Ebay and mostly the sellers are selling very old incandescent lamp versions at prices about 3x too high – looking for idiots. But I found one recently at $2k but the seller was not even willing to ship it to a US avionics shop to be powered up and quickly tested. He would not trust the shop as a trusted intermediary. I offered him $300 up front but it wasn’t enough. IMHO he was unreasonable, and he will probably never sell the unit because almost nobody in light GA is installing them today.
Unless you meet in person and do a bench test, or use an intermediary like above who can test it, or buy from an avionics dealer who has a name to protect (but will charge 2x more for that), there is no solution…
However, per thread subject, there is a lot of fake stuff out there. Whole planes mostly but smaller stuff too.
Advionik Straubing has 2 used ones.
http://www.avionik.de/produkte/gebrauchtgeraete.html
Send eMail to Josef Breu, [email protected]
Or call him +49 (09429) 9424-181
Since they are a hige avionics shop they will not only test it, but give you a limited warranty too.
Peter wrote:
Today, I think it is still pretty reliable with land numbers.
Would that also apply to the second digit within the 020 area code? It happens to be the case for my virtual number in London, 020 31xx xxxx, but would that also be true in general?
I think virtual numbers can be more or less anything. The point I was making is that a private seller would not normally be using a virtualised phone number. It’s possible (I can imagine VOIP scenarios and in fact I once got one such working on a mobile phone) but very unusual.
I have a virtual Derby number that does not contain the digit 1 (except in the dialling code 01332)
