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Writer's pictureErez "Terry" Barkaee

Should Fraud be a part of our Community?


It has been a while since we last published on Zooey Blog.

The reason we were away, is that we found ourselves caught up in a fraudulent act and tried to find ways to overcome this challenge so can support our customer.

We also were contemplating for some time, what to write and how to approach this so can keep being respectful and true to our believes & standards.


In the beginning of 2021, we paid for 2 items scheduled to be removed from a teardown.

Our trusted supplier (at that point in time) asked us to pay a deposit to secure these high valued parts, which we immediately did.

Commitments were made with a lead time and it looked to be a straightforward order.

Then, lead time commitments kept on being postponed and communication seized (Both emails & Telephone).

To make matters worse, when we did manage to contact our supplier, he then got mad at us for disturbing him.


“Lets not be naïve” we are as any other industry, but as one that prides itself on being a community, rather than an industry we should not accept it and try to denunciate fraudulence from our ranks.

To add to our confusion, a month after deposit was paid, we made a 3rd transaction with this supplier (Which cost more than deposit paid).

Funds were paid, the part were supplied to our customer with much satisfaction.


That got us going with some “detective” work.

Our investigation findings lead us to the Aircraft owner, which happened to be our customer.

We spoke with our Airline customer who advised that our supplier, the one suspect of the fraudulent act, was supposed to be buying the Aircraft was, allegedly, deceiving them and they ultimately sold the Aircraft to a different company for teardown.

Since it was clear our supplier cannot deliver the goods, we cancelled both orders and asked for a refund of our deposit.

Our supplier kept ignoring our repeating requirements for re-fund, as they have been doing so throughout this ordeal.

Before taking legal action, we decided to give it one more try.

We contacted a consulting firm to assist in the efforts of retrieving our funds.

It was difficult, even for them, to reach our supplier but when they did, our supplier kept on with the deceptive behavior.

The consulting company were ultimately not able to retrieve our funds and this is now under our legal department care.

This weekend, I had a chat with an old customer of ours, which happens to be in the same country as our supplier.

When asked if can assist with this supplier, they immediately advised: “You need to take a lawyer”

This is very unfortunate, but we We'll get through the challenge.


Especially these days, we should be more cautious and meticulous.

I wish all our customers, suppliers, affiliates and colleagues to keep safe and be well.


Let’s denunciate all of the swindlers from our community.







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