A new scam addressed at soaring pilots?

I think I should post about a recent scam, in the hopes that a soaring
pilot will not be a victim.

The local gliderport needs a right wing for a Blanik L-23. We posted an
ad on Tim's W & W site. Someone contacted me by email, and said he
had seen the ad. He was in NY, and he had the right wing we needed. He
described the circumstances of the crash and the damage to his L23 in
detail, and even mentioned the L23 red and white color scheme. There
was nothing in his initial emails to make you suspect he might be a fake
(the emails even were well written).

I could not find this fellow's name in the FAA owner database. However,
although he was vague about his exact location and the exact glider (he
only remembered the first three digits of the L23's six-digit serial
number), we were able to narrow down the damaged glider to one owned by
a corporation, which would explain the absence of his name on the FAA site.

After several emails, things started to appear more suspicious.
Although this fellow said he had immediate access to the glider for
purposes of removing the wing and shipping to us, he said it would be
very hard to find someone to show us the glider if we flew to NY to look
at it. Instead, we should just send him the money, and he would ship us
the wing. If we didn't like the wing, just return it to him. This
sounded odd, and we never heard from him again after we asked for more
information about the location and the ownership of the glider.

No one would buy a wing sight unseen, from a mystery glider, on the
theory they could just return it 2500 miles if they didn't like it.
Thus, this was not a scam with a reasonable probability of success.

However, there is a similar scam that could work quite well -- all of
the time, pilots advertise on this newsgroup for items they want to buy
such as chutes and loggers. It would be easy for a scammer to contact
a buyer by email, say he has the item, and will mail it as soon as he
receives the money.

So be careful when you buy soaring items from strangers. Or someone you
think you know -- it would be easy for a scammer to establish an email
address with the name of a real soaring pilot. Before committing to
anything, it probably is best to exchange some small talk about where
they fly, their plane, and other items that hopefully would reveal that
you are not dealing with a soaring pilot.