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Type Rating Scams

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Old 3rd Apr 2005, 08:34
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Chieftan o'the Pudden Race
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Type Rating Scams

This short article from BALPA
Employment News. BALPA March April 2005

Low hours pilots targeted by fraudsters

BALPA is occasionally alerted to scams which mostly catch out the very keen and young commercial pilots; fraudsters tend to particularly target newly trained pilots or those with low hours who are looking to jump the queue by paying for type ratings. This may or may not involve the promise of a job offer, any may only be a type-rating. By using websites and mobile phones these bogus companies and individuals can easily build a picture of credibility which can fool the unwary.

Remember, even if you are given the reassurance of transferring money to an escrow account (one held by a lawyer), the money is only as safe as the honesty of the lawyer. A couple of years ago several of our members were duped in this way to part with their money. Other scams have involved a Greek shipping company and a type-rating payment for an Excel/Citation operation; a similar situation in a supposed “tax haven” involving training and jobs based in Scandinavia and Spain; an Irish airline offering type ratings with no AOC; and the latest which has caught out several people, involving a UK company offering type ratings via a website and answerphone. In a Companies House search on this company, a similar named company is identified as “Dissolved or strike off pending”.
So beware-fraudsters are very inventive at changing their circumstances to defraud you. Their scams get resurrected in believable forms using aliases, different nationalities, countries and contracts. Some of the names being used by the fraudsters are similar to company names and aliases which have been used before; unfortunately the UK Police and Interpol do not want to become involved until a crime has been committed, and information on similar names or activities bears little weight.
I remember about 2 years ago there was a mob called JAC Academy who ripped off a few people, but the subject was kept off the PPRuNe pages until PPRuNe itself was scammed by them. Is there any way that we can warn each other about disreputable and dodgy service suppliers without upsetting sensibilities/moderators/lawyers?
Flypuppy is offline  
Old 3rd Apr 2005, 21:41
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I along with many other ex Oxford bods had received an e-mail a couple of years ago from the careers chappy at Oxford who was approached by a bogus company looking for crews. Think it was to be based in Italy flying a Hawker 800 or something along the lines of that. Anyway seemed all fine and dandy but I tried to do a bit of research and looked up in JP Airline Fleets for the company and found no details.

Anyway after a few moments alarm bells rang since the fax number for CV's had a Greece country code which seemed a bit odd for a outfit that was based in Italy. So I sent an e-mail to the careers chap at Oxford to clarify if the details were correct. He said that everything was above board and correct and seemed puzzled as to why I felt the need to query the information.

I laughed a lot a few days later when I got a rushed e-mail from Oxford saying don't apply since the company are a scam and that Interpol were on the case. Apparently they wanted type-rating money up front and they did a runner with your dosh!
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