PRIVATE JET CHARTER IS A FRAUDULENT COMPANY: FACTS
As it often happens after our first publications about a defaulter, more and more details, new cases, new evidence begin to appear. This is what happened with the PRIVATE JET CHARTER LIMITED (UK) case, the article about which caused a real stir. The information received and new cases leave no doubt to the BLACKLIST.AERO editorial team: the non-payments of this company are not accidents, but episodes of an openly fraudulent scheme. These are not tricks, not traps - this is a criminal offense in its purest form.
Immediately after the publication of the first article about the Private Jet Charter case, I started to be contacted by both the latest victims of the fraud of the owner of the company Hugh Courtenay and its sales director Egon Hebovija, and people who previously worked in this company under the leadership of these persons. Both fully confirm the information presented in the first article, indicating that the “Pay twice” scheme has been used by these scammers for quite a long time.
The fraudulent scheme looks like this: after the client has booked a charter and paid the Private Jet Charter company the required amount in full, a very short time before the flight, the charter broker contacts the client and informs that the company was unable (!) to transfer the money to the operator. The charter broker asks the client to pay the required amount again, this time directly to the operator, in order to save the flight. At the same time, the broker assures the client that his first payment will be returned by Private Jet Charter within a week. As you understand, after this, none of the victims have seen their money again.
In this fraudulent scheme, the time factor plays an important role - the client is put in a difficult situation when it is hard to find an alternative under time pressure. Plus, at that moment the client has no time to analyze broker’s actions - he needs to operate the flight, and exactly when he planned. Therefore, this scheme has worked many times. And it could have continued to work if BLACKLIST.AERO had not intervened.
After the publication of the first article, thanks to my new contacts, I managed to get an alternative phone number for Hugh Courtenay and chat with him on WhatsApp. Hugh Courtenay said that he had “retired” and was not involved in the company’s affairs. All operations were handled by Egon Hebovija. “I’d suggest you speak to Egon, I’m not involved in the day to day business anymore,” he said.
Let me remind you that in my first article I wrote about my experience of communication with Egon Hebovija. Then Egon said that he had quit the company and all operations of Private Jet Charter were handled by Hugh Courtenay. They both are lying. We have repeatedly encountered cases where partners in a fraudulent scheme put all the blame on each other in order to make it difficult to find out the truth. It won’t work...
Former employees of Private Jet Charter testify both that Egon Hebovija gave them instructions to inform clients that they needed to pay for the charter again, and that Hugh Courtenay personally did this. Otherwise as scam committed in an organized group, it can hardly be considered.
What Hugh Courtenay and Egon Hebovija are doing
Having realized that the fraudulent scheme has now been exposed and Private Jet Charter LTD is already on everyone’s lips, Hugh Courtenay and Egon Hebovija pretended that the company was ceased operations and switched to work on behalf of another company, AIRCRAFTCHARTER INTERNATIONAL LIMITED with a website at: https://www.aircraftcharter.com/ As you can see, the scammers didn’t even bother to come up with a new logo. And the history of official records of this company is eloquent: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11653520/officers
In a conversation with Hugh Courtenay, I asked him to confirm that this company belongs to him, to which he replied: “I own a few companies my friend, suggest you check, but none are trading”. As practice has shown, here too Hugh Courtenay lied: the company is currently actively engaged in brokerage activities.
What the BLACKLIST.AERO does
I no longer see any point in ranting about the moral and ethical side of this issue, as in the previous article. Guessing whether Hugh Courtenay was always a scammer, or became one due to certain circumstances is pointless. Since we are dealing with real criminals, the police should deal with them.
Therefore, the BLACKLIST.AERO administration has already filed a report in the ActionFraud Office in the UK and is ready to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in providing all available information. We also hope that in case of an official investigation, people who worked under the leadership of Hugh Courtenay and Egon Hebovija will give official testimony.
In the meantime, we strongly recommend you to stay away from any company that these two persons may be associated with. The possibility that you will lose part of your money forever is extremely high.
Artem Degtiarov, Chief editor at BLACKLIST.AERO
As the administration of the Global Aviation Register of Defaulter companies BLACKLIST.AERO found out, the company iFUEL AG falsified numerous photos of fuel trucks and other airfield equipment with IFuel logos for use in advertising campaigns.
Yesterday, HARMONY JETS put out an official letter to their counterparties, in which they tried to at least somehow fend off my article published two weeks ago. As you remember, I flew to Malta in order to clarify the facts that shed light on why HARMONY JETS flights can be cancelled at any time. And therefore, the company developed a special scheme that allows them not give back the money paid for the flight to clients.
There is a certain wicked irony in the fact that a company that signed the Three Cases Declaration two years ago and committed itself to fight systemic defaulters has itself become a Three Cases Defaulter. But if the signing of this Declaration was originally an attempt to avoid the pressure of the BLACKLIST.AERO administration on its own debts, then there is nothing strange about it. As I said before participation in the Three Cases Declaration is not an indulgence from non-payments.
In order to understand why companies like HARMONY JETS can do what they do with impunity, I had to fly to Malta. So to speak, “to the stomping ground” of these crooks. Only on the spot was it possible to find out who was covering them - by their active actions or deliberate non-interference. And at the same time to understand why HARMONY JETS flights are cancelled, and their aircraft remain on the ramp.
