Apartment scam/ roomscam/ rental scam/ London UK Craigslist

Hi everybody,

I nearly got scammed in search of a room to rent in London, England, UK, for one week.

Here are the details:
ad on craigslist.co.uk: http://london.craigslist.co.uk/roo/1308626890.html
£95 lovely room with suitable facilities available now! (central london)

Date: 2009-08-06, 1:51PM BST
Reply to: [email protected] [Errors when replying to ads?]

I have a lovely room en suite that would suit professional single person or couples and Students,do not mind male or female.I do not discriminate so anybody from any part of the world can apply. I have an apartment with beautiful tile flooring through to large lounge nice and bright and over looks the park , tree lined surbian part of Baker street,few mins to tube and shops and bars and a minute walk to Parks to hang out.
The flat has a lot of facilities such as a sprinkler system,water dispenser,air conditioner,heater,beautiful couch,split unit system and WI-FI so you can access the internet from anywhere in the flat.
The flat has a wealth of transport links enabling easy access to every area of London and,indeed, across the UK.Am a very neat and tidy person and i love the cinemas and pubs and don't mind a neat and tidy person also; guess thats enough for now.... So if you suit this positon, what are you waiting for ?

Pictures will be sent to interested persons

Name: Helen Cole
Email: [email protected]
Age: 28
Address: 7, Baker Street, London W1U
IP Addresses: 41.219.216.207, 41.219.220.204, 41.219.224.234, 41.219.228.71 (all Nigeria)

Pictures used:





(Whoahey! Now even with all the pictures!! )

What made me suspicious to go checking for IP addresses:
Appartment looks as if nobody lives in it
Address given is just a streetnumber without an appartmentnumber, at that address there is only a one level building, a bank
Very high deposit (GBP300), cheap??/reasonable rent for the area (GBP95/week), transferable only via Western Union
Constantly mentions what a good Christian she/he is and strongly believes in God
Calling me "my dear girlfriend" from her 3rd email on

I will try and get a phonenumber.

Right now I am just tired and sad. I had the feeling we could become friends and "she" might visit me back and so on. I kind of liked "her". "Her" who must be some Nigerian Scam artist. What has this world come to? Why do I have to snoop around in email source codes when all I want is to rent a room? I am so sad.

Hi fanciulla,

Welcome to Scamwarners

I am glad you found out that it is a scam before losing any money, many are not quite so lucky.

The internet has many traps for the unsuspecting, many of which you can learn about in our forums.

Please remain vigilant and look for the many warning signs and check them all out thoroughly, if you do have any questions please dont hesitate to ask.

You posting these details may prevent somebody else from being scammed so thank you

Editing to add
Dont feel bad about the pictures, I had a bit of trouble myself
Besides, what you have done works just fine

Hi Ralph,

thank you for your kind welcome. I have some experiences as a Romance Scam Baiter, I just wouldn't have thought that renting a room for a week would get me into any trouble. Little did I know.

Usually at this point I would enjoy screwing around a little with fake MoneyGram receipts etc., but that person knows my full name and my address, so I am backing off this time. Still I do think about contacting him/her pretending being someone else. Maybe I will do that.

Thanks!
Fanciulla

Great to hear you are a baiter, you know the signs already, many of the signs are much the same as romance scams.

Use of scripts, poor English and grammar, some of the words just not right, the insistence on Western Union and IP pointing to Africa.

You also know not to bait him using your own details, stay safe, its isn't worth putting yourself at any risk for a phone number

Yeah, I just looooooove insisting using MG perfectly knowing that MG isn't traceable online whereas WU is. So with MG the scammers never know what will happen to them at the bank and if the promised amount is worth the humilation

This one just caught me off guard outside of my known territory and instinctively touched a very soft spot of mine. I am almoste sure the person I am writing with is a man pretending being a woman. Why do I never meet such sensitive guys in real life? I would be all over them

Plus his/her English in the emails is fantastic! Either he/she runs a spelling programm or has had some good education. I'm impressed, this one really puts effort into writing thoughtful and amusing emails (I've run a few remarkable parts through google, nothing shows up) totally going through my points...

Glad to see you got the pictures sorted out

I just did a search myself on the opening line and one of the hits is close enough to be certain it is the same scammer Click Here

It is this hit in particular that caught my attention Click Here

Hi,
I have a lovely room en suite available now that would would suit professional single person or couples and Students,do not mind male or female in Westminister.The person can start by 15th of August (can move the dates a bit forward/backward if need be on a case by case basis).

Am a Nurse and am from London and a good resource on the city.

** Features:
- Fully furnished apartment, inc. plasma TV (SKY), bedroom furniture, etc.
- Five minute walk to Westminster tube stop and Saint James' Park tube stop. Equally ideal for people working in City / Canary Wharf.
- On site Gym and Sauna
- 24 hour porter
- Washing Machine
- Provision of a cleaner that comes once a week

**Building:
- Located in an exclusive building not too far from Parliament View Apartments, the one of Match Point presented in excellent condition throughout benefits from secure underground parking and magnificent views across the River Thames as you can see on the picture (yes it's not fake !).
- Also FREE access to the building's GYM!
- parking space

**Appartment:
- On the third floor
- Fully equipped modern kitchen with dishwasher and washing machine/tumble dryer, two further bedrooms and bathroom with shower. WIFI and TV already set up
- The flat comes completely furnished.

** The room:

**Location:
-Tube Station : Westminster (5mins) and St James's Park Tube (8 min)
-Metro : 344 direct to the city in 20min, 3 direct to Oxford circus via Trafalgar Sq and Charing cross

**COST

-110pound per week which implies 440pounds per month (Inclusive of all bills like Council tax, water, Gas,Electricity,TV License)
- Refundable security deposit is 400pounds

We would like someone to maybe enjoy the odd beer or glass of wine, he he but also like s there on space too, friendly clean and tidy as we like to treat it like a home so if you are interested, Get in touch

Helen


cats are OK - purrr
dogs are OK - wooof
Location: WESTMINISTER
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

I have bolded some of the signs
Bolded didn't show well so I made it Blue

Great job

Okay, with THOSE pictures I would never have replied, also the "am" obviously rings a bell. Maybe it is not the same scammer, but just copied some of the sentences?

Like Grandma used to say: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
The scammer seems to be in love with the area of westminster.. at least he/ she got taste *g*

Welcome to Scamwarners. As you're a baiter, you may like to pop next door to www.419earer.com.

"7 Baker Street" - wasn´t that the street where most of Sherlock Holmes´ cases started? Every fan knows this street and today there is a Sherlock Holmes Museum. So maybe he got the address from there.

Yes. 221b Baker Street.

See below for details of what almost tricked me. Does anyone know if those who ask for payment by PayPal are more reliable?

I encountered two companies the companies that fit the descriptions on Trip Advisor for scam short-stay apartment rentals, especially the 070 numbers (which didn't work when I called them), the unbelievable rates (for both London and New York!), and the 'advice' that I send via Western Union to secure my flat.

Beware of:

upwardlondonlettings.com - +44 704 571 4104

thepalacereservations.com - +44 703 598 2360

Thy both post on C's list, the pictures are gorgeous, the locations perfect, and when I asked them for references and a working phone number to call, they ignored it and sent info on who I should wire the money to:

Name: Charlene Kramer

Address: 283 oak street

City: Rochester,

State: NY

Zip Code: 14608

Does anyone know how to find a legitimate apartment rental place?

thepalacereservations.com looks down for me already, the gears are set in motion to get upwardlondonlettings.com down

Welcome here Jenskef. It will always be difficult to avoid the scammers, but a healthy suspicion helps. Note that the +4470 telephone numbers are redirects to phones that can be everywhere on the world. That's a good indication of a scam.

Yet another one, they found my ad on CraigsList or university housing in Tacoma WA area and sent this:

Sent By:
"MARIAM VINCENT" <[email protected]> On: Apr 04/30/10 10:46 AM

Hello,
How are you doing?Hope God is taking care of you and your family? I am Mariam by name from Manchester(UK) and i am coming for a Research in University Of Puget Sound By May 2010 so i need a place to stay. A little about me. I am 27 years old,i gentle, neat,respectful,i mind my own business, no smoking,no overnight guest,no party,i promise to keep the place neat as you ever wanted,my favorite colours are blue and white. I will love to rent from you and i will love to rent for one year but i may extend the rent later so tell me more about the place and i will also appreciate some pictures to the place.If there is any application that i will need to fill plz have it sent to me via email so i could print and bring it over with me when coming over cos i do not have access to fax machine.I will be happy to rent from you so get back to me as soon as possible.Do tell me the asking price per month and how do i secure it before coming over?Happy new day to you and your family.
God bless you.
Mariam

^^ the above email reads as a typical mail from someone from West Africa. I don't get any hits when i search for that email address. If you are in doubt, then post the full headers of Mariams email and we'll try to trace the IP, so that we know where she is writing from.