Beware of scammers

[Strangeclouds]

I have had two separate individuals try to scam me and have both requested forms of payments that are non refundable. I did my due diligence and requested photos of the product with a sheet of paper showing their email address or name in view.


None of them could provide that and one even sent me photos from an old 2019 expired eBay listing. (A reverse image search proved this) I confronted the individual and they have not responded. I also did a reverse image search on their google profile picture and it was a picture of a doctor from France haha. (They stated they were from North Carolina)

I just wanted to let everyone know to beware of the potential scammers.

Pauldmon a user of this forum who became a member on the 9th of March is not a legitimate person.

Anyone telling you to reach out to terrywillam2010@gmail.com is also trying to scam you. I have verified that this is not a real person.

This is ridiculous that people are trying to take advantage of us pilots on a damn avionics forum but I just wanted everyone to be careful and to do your due diligence before sending money to someone that reaches out to you. Hopefully I can find a real supplier at some point.

 

[Airasys]

Hello,

Thanks for posting this, I just had a Paul Dmon send me a message today saying that terrywillam2010@gmail.com was a good guy that I can trust for trying to locate an HS-34.

I am also working with a Jake Diaz out of New York who is selling me a Dynon 180 but things seem a little strange. He may be legit but he switch from being ok with PayPal to only Venmo because he says PayPal has a bunch of his money tied up. I have done my homework on Venmo speaking with Customer service who did actually validate his account so I might ok. Just figured that I would ask to see if he is one of the people that you have recently dealt with.

Thanks for your time.

David.

I have had two separate individuals try to scam me and have both requested forms of payments that are non refundable. I did my due diligence and requested photos of the product with a sheet of paper showing their email address or name in view.


None of them could provide that and one even sent me photos from an old 2019 expired eBay listing. (A reverse image search proved this) I confronted the individual and they have not responded. I also did a reverse image search on their google profile picture and it was a picture of a doctor from France haha. (They stated they were from North Carolina)

I just wanted to let everyone know to beware of the potential scammers.

Pauldmon a user of this forum who became a member on the 9th of March is not a legitimate person.

Anyone telling you to reach out to terrywillam2010@gmail.com is also trying to scam you. I have verified that this is not a real person.

This is ridiculous that people are trying to take advantage of us pilots on a damn avionics forum but I just wanted everyone to be careful and to do your due diligence before sending money to someone that reaches out to you. Hopefully I can find a real supplier at some point.

I want to confirm that I have also had two people reach out to me last night ( same people that (StrangeClouds mentioned) and this morning also showing the same old images used on previous Ebay and SimHQ ads. These images were just flipped, rotated and scaled out of proportion. I asked both individuals to provide me current pictures of the front back and side on the same background (table, couch or carpet) and none have responded since.

Be careful guys.

 

[Dynon]

Be super careful. We've banned a couple of suspected spam/fraud accounts recently.

 

[Airasys]

Be super careful. We've banned a couple of suspected spam/fraud accounts recently.

Thanks to the Dynon team for taking quick action and looking out for the group, much appreciated!

 

[Airasys]

I have found that most of these scams involve using older pictures of avionics that have been posted in expired for sale ads (use a reverse search on Google if you are suspicious of anything), this method takes a few minutes per image to go through but it is very useful. If you find even one image that is used from a previous ad/search then have your guard up moving forward with any deal.

One way that I have found that a scam can usually be confirmed is by requesting that the seller takes a few new pictures of all items that you are interested in put on a common background, (chair, table or floor), this is something that should take a seller less than a few minutes to accomplish and most reputable sellers will have no problems doing this.

If a seller starts to be hesitant with responses after requesting new pictures, makes excuses or says that they can't provide you with updated/current images then you can bet that this seller is trying to scam you.

Also if a seller try's to switch payment method at the last minute from using more secure service such as Paypal to something less secure like Venmo and that the new payment method /account does not offer buyer protections they are more than likely trying rip you off.

 

[Russell Duffy]

I've bought and sold a bunch of used items over the years, including several D180 instruments. In all those transactions, I never had anyone try to scam me, and never even worried much about the transactions. Recently, I had a number of "wanted" ads posted on various forums for a D180, and I've received at least a half dozen scam attempts without a single real seller. I got a couple of them banned on the RV forum, and pulled most of my ads just because I was tired of dealing with scammers. It's shocking how bad this has become.
Rusty