How to pay/get paid without being scammed ?

This may have been covered but could not find any reference.

Airplane parts are expensive and as experimental owners/builders we are always looking for bargains. So, when you have found an apparent bargain, how do you buy it without getting ripped off. PayPal does not seem to offer any dispute resolution outside of using eBay.

So to make this VAF specific, if we bought something off the ads here, and paid through PayPal, and the seller never sent you the product, you would have no way to get your money back. I have never had a problem, and every pilot or builder I have every met is very honest and willing to help at any time. But if I go off of Craig?s list I may not be so lucky.

Any suggestions on protecting the little money I have? How do you guys pay for the items you are buying here on VAF?

Thanks!

We (Tanya and I) call it the VAF honor system. You hang out, post, and get to know who you're dealing with. People that are well embedded in the community simply aren't going to jeopardize their reputation. Those that you can't really get a feel for from looking at past post history (low post count is definitely a factor) might warrant a little more care... I works quite well, and is way better than "outside the community transactions". You can sell to whoever makes you most comfortable, then sleep well being pretty sure they don't want to flush all their reputation and integrity.

Pay via Paypal using only your credit card. The credit card company provides buyer protection. If selling via paypal, do not leave a balance in the paypal account. Transfer funds to your bank acount as soon as available. If you are concerned, ship signature required. USPS delivery confirmation is useless and is not considered a means to prove shipment. Also, for the most part, avoid overseas sales/purchases unless you have a know buyer/seller.

I recently bought an item here on VAF. It was > $1000.00. It was simple. In my case the gentleman sent me his e-mail address which was from state university in the mid-west. I went to that university's website and sure enough he was a professor there and the e-mail address listed on the university's website was the same as the one I was using to exchange e-mails with him.

The overwhelming majority of scams perpetrated on-line are fairly easy to detect and avoid. They seriously are fishing for gullible people.

Here are my personal rules:

1) Never, ever send money with Western Union to someone that you do not know. If it is a scam, your money will be gone and untraceable. In fact, don't send money via Western Union at all. They are horrible. Several years ago I was down at Sun-n-fun in Lakeland and a relative living in Alabama called me and was in a bind and needed some cash. I found a Western Union and wired him $500.00. It cost me $40! When I expressed (very kindly) my disdain for the price the lady at the Western Union location told me it would cost $8.00 to send the same amount to Mexico.

2) Look at the e-mail address. Is the address from a reputable company (i.e. ibm.com or wastemanagement.com) or a government agency or is it a freebie like gmail or yahoo or hotmail? If someone uses their work e-mail form a company that you are aware of it's fairly easy to double-check the person's identify. Most companies have phone directories where you can call and search for the person. Call the person at work if you have any doubts.

3) One common scam is for someone to sell you something on-line and then offer to pay you with a cashier's check (or some other type of check) which has a sum greater than the value you are selling the item for. Then the "buyer" asks you to send the item and a check for the difference. If you do this you will be out of your item and the difference because the cashier's check will be a fake.

4) For us dealing in the world of aircraft it's fairly easy to tell if the seller knows what's going on. If you are a buyer, ask the seller about the service history of the item. You will know in 5 minutes if the person is knowledgeable in aircraft or not. Yeah, aircraft people can rip folks off too, but I have found that most of our kind are extremely honest and dishonesty is not tolerated. Heck, go to Sun-n-fun or OSH and you'll see cell phones sitting around, unattended being charged at whatever outlet is available.

Michael,

I bought a good hundred items for my RV here on VAF for good price and sold a few. All transactions were executed via personal check. I often ask to pay me when people receive the item. Only two purchases were not as expected, one on my part because I should have worded it more clear (I still can use the part though) and second - I never received a promised check (let it be a gift). Luckily the sum was small and comparable to shipping expenses so I didn't bother much. May be payment was sent and lost in usps machines. Look at post history, pay attention to low post count and frequent short time poster. Probability is very very low you get scammed here.

Watch the community

I agree with Scott. When I want to buy or sell something to a VAF person who is unknown to me, I first check their posts history. It gives me a sense of their sensibilities. It also might lead me to a mutual acquaintance, who can clue me/us into the wisdom of the deal. Of course, also check the archives to see what others have said....and avoid the one vendor catering to RVs that I know about who has taken off with many of our funds!

We actually sold an avionics unit to someone we didn't know in Italy. We corresponded. His posts and notes to us made us comfortable. He ended up taking the bigger risk in the deal, paying us before arrival. But, perhaps he was comfortable because of Paul's major presence on the forum. And, just in case, we had him wire the funds to a bank account that I was about to close out and was nearly empty so we wouldn't risk someone we didn't know having access to any of our funds.

As for buying aircraft parts on Craig's List, I think you need to have a high tolerance to risk. I would only want to do that sort of deal face-to-face.

after a couple of emails back and forth, you can usually tell if a guy is legit or not.

on a bad apple, something goofy will emerge when he is describing or explaining.

I don't believe you will have any issues with VAF guys. But Craig's list is a complete different subject.

There's been a thread about this recently. You can deal with credit card or Paypal for most items. If it's really big or you have doubts, you can always go with an escrow service.

payment

I purchased an item for more than $1000.00 recently here on VAF. I sent a check and he sent the part when he received the check. It worked well. Ron

Another Issue When Buying

I have kept this to myself, as I did not want to start a firestorm. But, I have something else on the topic of buying.
Please...Please...If you are the seller, ship the parts when you tell the seller that you did, and don't give a line of B.S.
I recently purchased some equipment from one of our members, paid him, and received a message saying that it had been shipped. Almost 3 weeks later, I realized that I had never received the parts. I emailed the seller and in the next day or so, received an email simply asking if I had "received the parts yet"? That day, the parts arrived. This was in December, and I was chalking it up to Christmas rush, but the shipping date showed that it had been shipped 3 days before I received it, which was well past two weeks when he said it would ship!
Those that I have bought parts from, have sometimes had to wait a few days for me to get a check in the mail, or get a PayPal payment made as I am sometimes in remote places in the world, and ID theft is always a concern. However, I have always been up front in informing the seller, and giving them the option to move to the next guy if it was a problem. Other sellers have advised me that they could not ship for a period of time due to differing reasons, which is no problem as we all have lives. This seller could not even "man up" with the true story when I asked him where my stuff was!
Thanks for listening to my rant!

I will reccomend you ask for references if it is that important to you...Same if you buy something from barsntormers.

Jamie said:

1) Never, ever send money with Western Union ..... It cost me $40! When I expressed (very kindly) my disdain for the price the lady at the Western Union location told me it would cost $8.00 to send the same amount to Mexico.

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Western union makes its money going to mexico through volume. i don't even want to think about all the people from mexico sending money back to there- it is a LOT.


Jamie had some great points. I've bought a lot of stuff over the internet from various web sites, and it is always good to google the persons name and address, you'll often come up with some interesting info.

i've had ebay cancel purchases after i won an item if the guy was deceitful. it happens pretty often on egay, but i don't think it would happen on VAF. first time for anything though, so buyer beware. i remember some guy selling a handful of engines for excellent(maybe to good?) prices, i don't think anyone ever saw those engines in person so people decided to pass. never really heard from the seller again.

jetjok said:

Other sellers have advised me that they could not ship for a period of time due to differing reasons, which is no problem as we all have lives. This seller could not even "man up" with the true story when I asked him where my stuff was!
Thanks for listening to my rant!

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regarding "manning up"- I've done that once- out of probably over 400 items bought from individuals over the internet, and around 100 items sold- I couldn't get organized to get something shipped, and it took a week longer than i said. It was embarrassing to send the email saying it hadn't shipped yet, knowing i should have done it 6 days ago. the other guy said no problem, but it can take more gumption to admit it than you'd think sometimes.


A general admonition: Don't make it so public that we exchange high dollar items and money on trust in a general thread such as this. It could lead to someone deciding there are some easy pickings here. Just a thought.

thanks all!

Thanks for all the great replies. Although I do 90 percent of my shopping on the net, I have never bought anything from Ebay nor have I used PayPal. This is changing now that I am buying plane parts because they are so specialized.

Hope I am not breaking any rules by posting this URL, but here is the reason I am concerned. I found some great deals on this site but I am almost certain it is fake. (too good to be true) Especially knowing Garmin. Bertstore.com A 696 for $2300 brand new???? Has to be fake. Anyone have experience with this site??? Also saw a used 496 for $950 on another Craig?s list type site.

If Paul had anything for sale I would trust him to send the money before receiving the product. So reputation is always a big part of my decisions to buy. But not all people are as honest as Paul.

I am looking for a 496 but I am frugal (um? cheap) But maybe an extra couple of hundred dollars are the price you pay for peace of mind.

Danny, I sure hope I did not open the door for some outside person to scam us. I didn?t think about this. But if someone does, may a bird poop on his head. (or worse)

I could be wrong, but I say it's a flat out scam.

Here's why:

Google bertstore.com. You will see a ton of items for sale on other websites (ebay, etc). They all have the same phrase, "I bought it from bertstore.com , i have the original receipt and the warranty".

This website is very simple and basically has no interactive functions. I believe that it was set up so that when people go to an auction site to "buy" an item they will simply go to bertstore.com and think that it's an actual on-line store (which it isn't).

Garmin also has MAP (minimum advertised prices) here in the US. Resellers are not allow to advertise a price lower than that specified by Garmin. Yeah, it's sort of ridiculous and the Canadian government actually has enough sense to make that practice illegal, so sometimes you can get legit products from Canada for less than MAP.

But as for this bertstore.com...I would stay away. As our good buddy Stein says, my two cents as usual.

Thanks Jamie!!!

Jamie,
Thanks!!! I just did the same thing you did and got the same suspicious results. It is horrible that someone would target pilots and fisherman for a scam like this. Again I hope I did not open the door here for the evil to enter.

I guess too good to be true, is just that. I guess the lesson here is to beware of scams.

5 Figures

I am well into five figures on what I have purchased from people on VAF alone (Doug, please don't tell my wife!) Mostly from names I recognize, and rarely from a poster with just a few posts or less, as the writer above described. I tend to be over trusting. In all my purchases, I have only been burned one (big) time, and it was from a regular here. But that lesson has given me the opportunity to tell people that of the hundreds, if not thousands of RV folks, I have only met one bad apple. Guess the moral to the story is there is really no way of knowing, or guarantee that you won't get burned.......

engine sold

i sold my worn out 0-360,thru barnstormers to a vaf guy in arizona. his dad was an engine mechanic by trade. this was a $8,000 deal. it worked on the honor system. some email history is a good idea too. 10% held the deal. %75 was payed before i shipped the engine to him. the old engine went out in the same crate that the new engine came in. same shipper and driver too.after confirming crank and case were good he sent me the %25 balance. a detailed phone conversation was had before shipping and was a good idea, there were a few unclear details. maybe well get a response from him. the rv should be far along. it was a bit intense but worked out fine. loving my new engine. turbo

Danny7 said:

It was embarrassing to send the email saying it hadn't shipped yet, knowing i should have done it 6 days ago. the other guy said no problem, but it can take more gumption to admit it than you'd think sometimes.

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I am sure that any buyer (including myself) would be very understanding of an email saying "hey...I got jammed up, but it's on it's way". As my email said, we all have lives outside of VAF.
I have bought many items large and small from our fellow VAF'ers, and my faith in this group remains at the upmost.

jetjok said:

I have kept this to myself, as I did not want to start a firestorm. But, I have something else on the topic of buying.
Please...Please...If you are the seller, ship the parts when you tell the seller that you did, and don't give a line of B.S.
I recently purchased some equipment from one of our members, paid him, and received a message saying that it had been shipped. Almost 3 weeks later, I realized that I had never received the parts. I emailed the seller and in the next day or so, received an email simply asking if I had "received the parts yet"? That day, the parts arrived. This was in December, and I was chalking it up to Christmas rush, but the shipping date showed that it had been shipped 3 days before I received it, which was well past two weeks when he said it would ship!
Those that I have bought parts from, have sometimes had to wait a few days for me to get a check in the mail, or get a PayPal payment made as I am sometimes in remote places in the world, and ID theft is always a concern. However, I have always been up front in informing the seller, and giving them the option to move to the next guy if it was a problem. Other sellers have advised me that they could not ship for a period of time due to differing reasons, which is no problem as we all have lives. This seller could not even "man up" with the true story when I asked him where my stuff was!
Thanks for listening to my rant!

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That's a good point - I think you can actually have UPS create the shipping label for you so that you get email notification when it is actually sent by the seller (you give them the tracking number, they have their store pull it up). I have done that (include the recipient's email address) for all the folks who bought from me so that there was never any doubt about shipping status.

Whois

Here is what a whois request shows about this site:

Domain Name.......... bertstore.com
Creation Date........ 2009-10-05
Registration Date.... 2009-10-05
Expiry Date.......... 2010-10-05
Organisation Name.... Robert Jalosinski
Organisation Address. PO Box 61359
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. Sunnyvale
Organisation Address. 94088
Organisation Address. CA
Organisation Address. US

Admin Name........... Admin PrivateRegContact
Admin Address........ PO Box 61359
Admin Address........
Admin Address........ Sunnyvale
Admin Address........ 94088
Admin Address........ CA
Admin Address........ US
Admin Email.......... [email protected]
Admin Phone.......... +1.5105952002
Admin Fax............

Tech Name............ TECH PrivateRegContact
Tech Address......... PO Box 61359
Tech Address.........
Tech Address......... Sunnyvale
Tech Address......... 94088
Tech Address......... CA
Tech Address......... US
Tech Email........... [email protected]
Tech Phone........... +1.5105952002
Tech Fax.............
Name Server.......... yns1.yahoo.com
Name Server.......... yns2.yahoo.com

The domain has been created recently (October 2009), the admin and tech email addresses sound bogus.
Also, their payment pages says you are subject to tax if you're from Alabama or Missouri, but the company HQ info is located in California. I find it weird, but maybe it's a normal practice in the US?
Making a lot of purchases on the net from France, I'm also very concerned about who I send money to, because it's even more difficult to recover from outside-US.
My .02?

Scam Alert

I just ran a search for Robert Jalosinski and BertStore, and this guy is trying to sell items in New Zealand and Australia as well, claiming he's from either Auckland or Canberra.
Funny thing is that he sells under the Robert Jalosinski name, claiming he purchased the items from Bertstore.com
Run, Forrest, run

FlyingArcher said:

The domain has been created recently (October 2009), the admin and tech email addresses sound bogus.

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I'm not defending this guy by any means, but.....

All this tells you is the renewal or creation date of the domain. It doesn't really provide any history. The admin and tech names are pretty typical. Most registrars provide a privacy option to reducing spamming. Any legitimate email sent is forwarded by the registrar.

FlyingArcher said:

Also, their payment pages says you are subject to tax if you're from Alabama or Missouri, but the company HQ info is located in California. I find it weird, but maybe it's a normal practice in the US?
Making a lot of purchases on the net from France, I'm also very concerned about who I send money to, because it's even more difficult to recover from outside-US.

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The fact that California was isn't in the list is a red flag. US/State tax laws require the collection of sales taxes for each state in which a company has a presence.

However, I wouldn't assume that the CA address is a HQ. It appears to be the address of his domain registrar. In doing a couple minutes of research, it appears that domains registered through Yahoo are managed by Melbourne IT. The address is most likely that of Yahoo.

Like I said, this information states nothing about the ethics or business practices of this indivudal or company good or bad.

If somebody is really bored, they can probably search through the business filings for for Alabama and Missouri. I know that all the vendor licenses in Ohio are a matter of public record and are available on the Internet. They may be in those states as well. If he's registered his business with either of those states, you may be able to get more information.

I have purchased several high dollar items from VAF members and have had no problems except in one instance. There was a guy advertising engines a year or so ago that turned out to be a big scam. He also advertised on Barnstormers and was found out to be a scammer fareley quickly. He sounded legit at first and I had a cashiers check ready to send for four engines but it just didn't feel right and I canceled the deal and found out a short time later it was a scam. Don

As someone who has many years invested with the RV crowd (my 1st RV-4 began in 1987, flew in 1994, many others, now a Rocket) and several years of selling (tailwheel forks and other stuff since 2006), it is a shame that there are always a few bad apples that ruin it for everyone else.

We have processed thousands of orders in the past 5 years. I'm sure that a few of them may have been less than expected in some way. That is why we list ALL of our contact info on our website. We don't want to be the cause of any unhappy RVers out there!! Always contact the seller if there's a problem.

I'd suggest that if you're a buyer, and you can't easily find contact info for the seller, be wary. If you're a seller, make sure that guys can talk to you.

There were interesting comments about PayPal in an earlier post. PayPal isn't the most customer friendly organization, but they are as safe as any other. They get a bad, yet well deserved rap, because it is very hard to contact a human being on their end.

However, millions of buyers and sellers have PayPal accounts. If you purchase with your PayPal account you do have recourse against the seller if you get screwed, for up to 60 days (or more). You have fewer rights as a seller!!!! So, use a signature delivery service to prove you sent the goods!!

Most, or all, web store sellers who offer "PayPal" also have a "Credit Card" checkout option. It can be confusing, but it's usually evident if you study the page for a minute. On our web store, you are given the choice to "Check out with PayPal" or use a credit card. Either way, the buyer is protected.

We use PayPal as our primary credit card processor, but accept checks, cash, flying RVs, etc. as payment. Many times a customer need only ask for another option and you'll find out that it's OK.

Bottom line: it should never be a concern for a buyer or seller to do business with anyone on this forum. A little homework should prove quickly who you're dealing with.

Hope this helps. We have found that PayPal and computers still cause much unnecessary angst among many RVers. That's why we happily take phone calls and phone orders!

nothing against your post vince, but i wanted to clarify why i don't use paypal: They have a policy against using their service for legal firearms, even firearm accessories. If they think you are violating their terms, your account gets frozen and i've known people to take several months to get their money back. Even if they had money in their account not relating to the "evil firearm accessory" it all gets frozen.

I don't deal well with companies that have political stances- the items have always been legal and in many cases not even regulated (spare parts)

just my experience and reason for never having a paypal account

Louise Hose said:

I agree with Scott. When I want to buy or sell something to a VAF person who is unknown to me, I first check their posts history. It gives me a sense of their sensibilities. It also might lead me to a mutual acquaintance, who can clue me/us into the wisdom of the deal. Of course, also check the archives to see what others have said....and avoid the one vendor catering to RVs that I know about who has taken off with many of our funds!

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I'm a very suspicious person, but haven't had any problem treating other VAF sellers as if I knew them. (Well, everyone I've bought from has 100+ posts, 1+ year in membership, and I think has had a plane in the build with a website and such....you might as well know them at that point!)

Anywhere else...well, I rarely then buy from "people" and do a lot of checks on "stores".

This thread is the #2 result for googling "bertstore.com" now.

Same scam, different day. Try googling "bertstore.com scam" -- you won't find scam reports, but you'll find tons of ad listings that all have "I BOUGHT IT FROM BERTSTORE.COM , I HAVE THE ORIGINAL RECEIPT AND THE WARRANTY." in them. A good guess would be they are scamming more in their auction/online listings, and using that line to back up the low pricing, since it "checks out" so to speak.

Also, note on the About Us and other content pages the various mispellings. The specific text they use can link the same people back to many other now defunct scam sites like navi-guide.com and gpstracklink.com among others. (Note those domains have had many owners...the current WHOIS info and the archive.org sites are NOT the "bad" folks!)

Oh, and the address at 6333 Oakdale Rd? It's a pizza shop... http://www.mountainmikes.com/locations.shtml ...and, the phone number (209) 315-8917 is disconnected of course.

That was from 5 minutes. Be very careful out there folks...but at the very least, google up! (And for personal interactions...if you mention escrow, and you never here back, or they insist on a particular place...run. Works great even if you don't intend to actually escrow money.)

(Note... Doug feel free to delete this post or user. I'm not posting this under my real VAF account, as these folks have been known to retaliate, and I have lots of personal info here, plus what you can get by looking up the N-number on my nice flying RV....coupled with the high search ranking, it's an easy spot. I've sent some scammers to jail, and...well, live and learn.)

I bought an engine thru Barnstormers. There was no way I was going to send over $12K to someone and just trust him to send me the engine much less send one that fit the description. I didn't know the guy from Adam.

I drove there. Saw the engine, the log books & everything looked legit.

Was going to wire transfer the money which USAA will do for free; other banks charge a fee, sometimes a big fee. There was a problem at his bank and it didn't go thru. He looked at me, said he thought he could trust me and asked for a personal check, which I provided.

The engine is sitting in my garage.

Yes, it was costly driving 1,000 miles each way but for that much money but I didn't want to take a chance. That was about as far as I thought it was worth driving and was really probably a little too far, but I am happy.

He looked at me, said he thought he could trust me and asked for a personal check, which I provided.

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I think for a lot of large purchases like this, this is exactly how it can work. When I bought my RV-6, I fretted a fair bit about how I would transfer such a large dollar value from A to B, crossing an international border. I went to see the plane before even putting a deposit down, and after spending half a day with the owner I think we were both very comfortable with the transaction. I think he would have taken a personal cheque if I offered it, but in the end I came home and mailed him a good old fashioned bank draft. We let the banks clear it before I went back to get the plane. I wasn't worried about him taking both plane and money and disappearing at that point, even though it would have been easy for him to do so.

At some point you do just have to trust. And if you don't or can't get that feeling that everything will be okay, then you just need to walk away from the deal, no matter how good a deal it seems.

Use COD

I have done many transactions over Craigslist, Ebay, boards like VAF, etc. The one sure way to get what you want and not deal with scammers is to use USPS or UPS COD services. Very inexpensive and you get to see what you are getting before paying even over long distances.

I bought my RV-8 tail and tools this way from a guy in CA and I'm from NJ.

It's an old way of doing things, I've been told, but it works.

Ed

nothing against your post vince, but i wanted to clarify why i don't use paypal: They have a policy against using their service for legal firearms, even firearm accessories. If they think you are violating their terms, your account gets frozen and i've known people to take several months to get their money back. Even if they had money in their account not relating to the "evil firearm accessory" it all gets frozen.

I don't deal well with companies that have political stances- the items have always been legal and in many cases not even regulated (spare parts)

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Danny, I totally agree that their policies can be a load of BS, but, sadly, they are still the 800 pound gorilla for online shoppers. This could easily develop into a PC incorrect rant against their PC!

Sadly, UPS, USPS, and others have all sorts of restrictions. You gotta wonder what the heck they're thinking. For example, last time I checked Kershaw Company would ship me any pocket tool part I need... except the knife blade. Huh? A 3" loose knife blade???? Nope, won't ship it.

Like I said, PayPal has a well deserved bad reputation, but they are still as safe as any other online payment method.

BTW, we never keep more than $100 in our Paypal account either!!! Yup, a LOT of withdrawals on a busy day, but it's PayPal's fault due to the policies that you point out.

Just use your credit card to purchase and don't fret about Paypal processing it. They can't do anything against your credit cards policies.