How can I spot a pilot scam?

How can I spot a pilot scam?

It is not easy to spot a pilot scam. Maybe a got place to start, would be to explain what a pilot scam is?

What is a pilot scam?

A pilot scam would, in our view, be a situation where a pilot is asked to pay for something or asked to enter a contract that turns out not as expected.

It happens all the time that things don’t turn out as expected. But when we refer to pilot scams it is a little more drastic than just a broken promise. We are talking about cases where pilots are tricked into paying for something they never get. Let’s look at an example.

The typical pilot scam setup

A scheme is announced, most likely a scheme for a pilot with low experience, and it includes typerating and hour building. Or it could be you already have a typerating, but you need some kind of operators conversion course and line training.

To secure your place you need to go through an interview. After the interview, you get told you have passed it but to secure your contract you need to pay a fee to secure your spot. The fee could be something like 2000 USD, so not a huge amount but still a bit. You pay and never hear anything from the operator again. By the time you figure out you have become a victim, the scammer is gone. Sometimes scammers can trick you into paying for a full typerating and then suddenly they are gone. Usually, it doesn’t go further than ”just” the reservation fee. A reason for this could be that if the amount is relatively low, it is less likely you will do much about it, for example legal action.

Why do pilot scams happen?

There is often a lack of sharing information, so maybe some figure out it is a scam but they don’t tell others. Other times you are just not sure, and who wants to blow the whistle and then not be right?

International licenses make it possible to apply for jobs all over the world. Even if you are not certified in another region, you can sometimes go through the validation of your license. That is why that even if you are sat in Europe you could apply for a job in South America or vice versa. But if you are from another part of the world and the job is advertized on the other side of the globe, how much local knowledge do you have? Exactly, most likely you don’t know anything. That’s why when ”we fly fast airline” announces a scheme where you can come and work for them, it’s hard to figure out if they are genuine or not. So perhaps part of the reason the scams happen is because of a lack of knowledge and research.

Another thing that has tricked a lot of pilots is that they have learned about the opening through a recognized job advert site. This means you may think it is a real scheme because you have learned about it through an official website. It could be good knowledge to have that some pilot job advert sites don’t do background checks on pilot offerings. If they don’t do background checks, scammers have an easy platform to market their scam.

How to spot a pilot scam?

An agency doing recruitment for an operator

Scammers have recently become even braver and there are examples of scammers having misused an operator’s name. By the time the operator is able to act, the scammers have already cashed in and moved on. If an offical airline name is used and the recruitment is done via an agency, it could be good to check if the official airline has written anything in their career section about working with the agency. If you don’t find any evidence on the official airline website about the job, it may be good to do some background checks.

No minimum hours

Scammers are often targeting pilots with little or no experience. This strategy opens up for as many pilots as possible going for the scheme. If the scheme doesn’t require any minimum hours, you may naturally be very quick to go for it. Let’s face it, there are not many options around for pilots with no/ low experience.

The terms and conditions

A small operator is unlikely to offer you free housing, dental care, high salary etc. The t&c’s in the scams we have seen lately are often not breathtaking, but overall just enough for you to think ”yes I could live on that”. Often it is worth considering if the t&c’s are realistic in regards to the local conditions. If you hear about a FO ATR job in let’s say Greece, where you get paid 6000 EUR per month and free housing as an FO, it would be worth double-checking that. It would seem rather high.

No requirements for the role

If an operator in for instance a Spanish-speaking country in South America are looking for pilots and they don’t even have it a requirement that you speak Spanish – how does that make sense? Why are they not recruiting local pilots or pilots that speak the local language?

You get an almost instant reply

Most low experienced pilots will have tried to apply for +100 pilot jobs and quite often you never hear anything back. If you suddenly get a nice personal email reply from the HR team and they timely respond to your emails, it could sadly be a sign of a scam. We are not saying don’t trust anyone, as of course there are nice HR departments out there who do a great job, it’s just a heads up. It can be good to do a background check of the operator/ agency and people you are communicating with.

Why is it still difficult to spot a scam?

The scammers are often pros. They communicate pretty much like an operator would do. However, the best clue is often if you get almost instant replies and everything is no worries, no problem attitude. Scammers are likely to move quickly, so it’s all about making you pay as soon as possible.

If you get to an online interview, everything may seem very organized and real. Remember the scammers are often pros that know how to make you feel comfortable but still sometimes they make it quite obvious. We know of one occasion where the interviewer talked 55 minutes about the amazing offer, and only 5 minutes consisted of competency based questions. This would seem a weird usage of time and be considered highly unusual.

So how can you avoid being a victim?

• Do a background check of the people you deal with. Linkedin can for example be a great tool. Is there a chief of HR with the name?
• Is the airline operating? Flight Radar can be a tool to check.
• Are there any pilots currently working in the company that can confirm that the operator is recruiting?

The worst (or most pro?) scam setup we have experienced recently, is where the scammer designed a website and used the name of an operator that had stopped trading during covid. The scammers made it look like they had relaunched operations. However when we researched it, there was no evidence on flight radar to support the facts. Also the registration of the airplanes suggested the planes had gone into storage in the US some time ago.

We hope you found the tips useful and that you can use this info to protect yourself from becoming a victim.

You are of course always welcome to contact us if you have any doubts. We would also love to hear from you if you have either been a victim or been close to becomming a victim of a pilot scam. Maybe you have some knowledge that could help others, which is what this post is all about.

Happy landings

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