Air Charter Association (ACA) and European Business Aviation Association (EBAA) are warning of increased online fraud.
The two European based industry bodies report that fraudulent companies use pages with images and text stolen from real websites, offering aircraft using names, registrations and contract templates from real companies to get customers to part with their money.
"Alongside this rise in private jet charter, there has been an increase in fraudsters to steal money from unsuspecting travelers and criminals trying to enter the chain," explained ACA CEO Dave Edwards. "They are paying significant amounts of money to get high Google Ad search engine ratings and funnel unsuspecting customers to these fake websites."
You can report suspicious Google Advertisements directly to Google Support or e-mail the ACA and/or EBAA to inform about the suspected site.
At Wing Aviation, we recommend doing your due-diligence before providing your payment details to someone (or a group) that you are not familiar with. You can rely on following aviation audit firms and associations to check the credibility of the operators or the brokers: