Steve Varsano breaks down why buying a corporate jet online is a minefield. Aircraft listings are often fake, already sold, or priced impossibly low as bait. You need a broker to verify anything and dig into damage history and ownership records, because if the deal sounds too good, it absolutely is.
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I always get calls from people saying that, "Oh, I've been looking on the internet and I found this airplane. I thought it was a great deal." First of all, if it was that easy, I wouldn't have a job. The fact of the matter is, finding something on the internet that's true is not always the case. Matter of fact, it's a rarity. So usually what happens is, somebody wants to underprice an airplane or even put an airplane on the internet for sale that's not really even for sale. It doesn't exist or it was already sold. That is just a way to get a buyer, sort of like put the hook in the water and get a fish. And once they got them on the line and they call them, "Oh, sorry, that airplane was just sold, but I thought I might be able to find you another one. Why don't you let me represent you? That's the way some of these people work, and that's the way they find customers. So unfortunately, the internet in most cases is not always 100% transparent and true. There are other things. You think you might have a great deal on an airplane, but you don't know the questions to ask. I mean, sometimes because it's damage history, it's ownership history, it's the pedigree where it came from. 100 different things that people have to look at, and these are the things that we do and decide for our clients. Like the old saying goes, if it's too good to be true, It usually is.
