This problem should be fairly well know. For example see
http://glidersailplanerides.com and http://www.funjumper.com/skyride
for some info on these jerks. http://glidersailplanerides.com was
started by glider FBOs annoyed by this scam.

www.1800SKYRIDE.com is the biggest scammer but they have many many
related sites and domain names including www.thrillplanet.com they
hide behind. They started scamming for parachute jumps and I believe
the USPA kicked even them out. Their "customer problems" (i.e. scam)
for parachute jumps even got featured at least twice on local TV in
Atlanta although coverage was pretty soft. See for example
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pa...Y&pageId=1.1.1

Unfortuantely companies like Google make money running their scam ads
and approaches to Google to do something about this have got to the
right group but they have declined to do anything claiming there has
not been enough consumer complaints. Apparently "do no evil" is easy
if you keep your head buried in the sand, or somewhere else dark.

The worst thing an FBO or club can do is to try to honor scam gift
coupons, that just helps these scammers continue. Clubs and FBOs could
help by noting on their web site they don't take certain gift coupons
and having themselves listed on http://glidersailplanerides.com and
can link to that site off their home page. Warnings on the SSA web
site about this would be helpful, I'm not sure where efforts to get
that done ever went.

Darryl


On Jun 11, 10:48 am, Nyal Williams
wrote:
We had a couple show up at our club with an email indicating the husband
had bought a glider ride through an online company devoted to thrill
event sales. The email indicated they had contacted our club, talked
with our president, and made an appointment for a flight at 1:00pm. No
such contact had been made, we did not recognize the name of the
company, and we called the whole endeavor into question.

The husband called that company, which wanted to pay us via their
company credit card. We don't take credit cards and we refused to talk
to the company. They then told the husband that they would refund his
payment and we suggested he refuse payment of that fee when billed by
his card company. He was happy with that when we told him that our
charge would be $99 instead of the $175 he had authorized on his card.

Apparently there are at least two companies and maybe more making these
third-party sales on line. I have heard that at least one of them is a
scam and I would be reluctant to accept any such arrangement unless it
were made through SSA.