First Time I`ve Seen This Scam...

[PaulPoulsen]

We`ve got a house for rent in the southwest part of Edmonton. Since we`ve been advertising, we`ve received more than our fair share of bogus emails. All of these emails usually are targeted at us landlords but tonight I ran into something different that I thought I should share with all of you.
I was relaxing on the couch watching the hockey game when my phone rang and the women on the other end asked if I was the person that had a house for rent. I told her that she had the right number and launched into my speech about how great the house is and how awesome I am. About five seconds into my spiel, she cut me off and said, "I can rent that house for $700." Now, from time to time, I`ll get an email that`s critical about landlords in general but I`d never had someone call me to berate me. Shocked, it took me a moment to come up with an answer. As politely as I could, I told her, "If you can find a house just as nice as mine for $700, I`d rent it." Before I could hang up the phone, she said, "You misunderstood me. I can rent YOUR house for $700. Not one just like it. YOUR house."

Now I`m really confused. "No, you can`t rent MY HOUSE for $700," I say. "It`s $1,600." It`s at this point I think she started to lose her patience with me.

"Listen," she said. "I`m looking for a place to live and found your ad. The house looks nice but is out of my price range. I kept looking and found a house that looked very similar to yours for only $700 and when I contacted the gentleman for more info, he sent me pictures of your house and told me it was at the address you have listed online. A stranger is misrepresenting himself and claiming to be you in an effort to rent your house."

Finally the lightbulb went on. I thanked her up and down and asked her where she`d found the fraudulent ad. Unfortunately, she couldn`t remember but thought it was Craigslist. She did, however, have the email that this guy sent her. I`ll post it here, minus the good Samaritan`s contact info, for you all to read.

Beyond warning all of you and going to see the police tomorrow, I don`t really know what else to do. I feel sick thinking about having a bunch of people showing up and telling me that they`ve paid some joker on the Internet to rent my house. All I can think to do is add my name and phone number across my photos so it will be more difficult to pass them off as belonging to someone else.

If anyone else has ever had a similar experience, I`d like to know how you dealt with it.

____________________________________________________________________________

Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:12:16 -0800
From: [email protected]
Subject: 3 bedroom flat well furnished
To: [email protected]

Hello XXXXXXX,

Thanks for the mail and it is my gladness to hearing
from you.I am Mr.Desmond, the owner of the Apartment
you are making enquiry of. which address is located at:
5415-203 Street NW Edmonton (South West) Alberta T6M 2W6.

Actually I resided in the house with my family,
such as my wife and my only daugther before and presently
we had packed due to my transfer from my working place and
now situated in the West africa (Nigeria) and presently my
house is still available for rent including the utilities like
hydro, washer and security e.t.c, it is well furnished.

I will like you to get in touch with me for more
discussion as i am with the keys and the document to
the house. Please i want you to note that,n i am a kind and
honest man and also i spent alot on my property that i
want to give you for rent, so i will solicit for your
absolute mentenance of this house and want you to
treat it as your own, it is not the money that is
the main problem but want you to keep it tidy all the
time so that i will be glad to see it when next i come
for a check up.

I also want you to let me have trust in you as i
always stand on my word. As soon as i hear back from
you i will attach you more pics of the house and also
give you the house rent application form that you will
fill and get back to me. You can reach me on +234807-277-652 and
you can stay in the apartment as long as you wish. per month rent is
($700 U.s Dollars) Security deposite Fee is ($300 U.s Dollars) .

You can go and view it then i will direct the DHL worker to bring you the
key and documents. So i will require your current house address.
Expect to read back from you asap.

 

[RebeccaBryan]

The sad thing is that these criminals wouldn`t be spending time doing this if they weren`t making money. There is so many honest ways to make money, why would one choose dishonesty?

 

[jeremyfleming]

Wow, what these losers won`t do......... you had a great idea though Paul - embed your contact info onto the pic, and these scammers will just move on to the next "easy" victim.

 

[SamEfford]

I had a similar email about 6 months ago. I ended up removing the address from my ad and giving the Postal Code for the online maps.

I like your idea about embedding your contact information.

 

[lanedry77]

I too had the same issue on Craigslist about three months ago.

I immediately went to Craigslist, found the offending ad, and used both the `Prohibited` and `spam/overpost` links in the top right hand side of the ad. The ad dissapeared a couple hours later, and that was the last I heard of it.

In my case, the offending post had the same property address, but the description had been scrambled around (one key phrase from the body of my legit post was the new headline, etc), and the pictures were WAY different. Contact info was all changed too of course.

From that point on, I kept checking all similar ads on Craigslist until I no longer had any legit ads up, just in case it happened again. It didn`t, but that would be my suggestion for anyone posting on Craigslist.


David.

 

[Grant]

Yeah, it seems to me that posting an address tends to cause more trouble than it`s worth. I know that if I`m looking for a house, an address is nice, but a postal code is good too. Then if someone is really interested, they can call you to find out more.

The alternative of embedding your contact information on the pictures works, too. As David pointed out, however, they could just use different pictures. It would be pretty obvious to renters that it was a different house, though.