Flat rent scam Utrecht

Hello everybody,

My boyfriend and I recently moved to Utrecht and are looking for a flat. We found one to good to be true, literally. After emailing back and forth with a "Clerk Peterson" we decided to google the address and see what happens. Firstly, the address is a high rise, I was never given a floor or apartment number, just a street number. So we went looking for scam alerts, we came across this site. Upon reading a report from another member of this site it became overly evident that we were being pulled into a scam. The emails shown on here we nearly identical to those recieved by us for example:
Hello ,
The apartment is well furnished two bedroom apartment which has the following facilities .
* living and dinnig room* 2 bedrooms* 1 bathroom* Open kitchen* Toilet* Air conditioner
* Central Heating* Microwave* Washing Machine*internet facility
The apartment is located in the following address.
Maliestraat 14, 3581 Utrecht, Netherlands
The rental fee of the apartment is 400 EURO per month including all utility bills .I have attached the photo of the apartment to this mail. kindly notify me if you are satisfied with the apartment in other for us to discuss on the payment process and how you will get the apartment keys and documents.
looking forward to read from you .
Cheers
This was accompanied by some photos of a lovely spacious apartment. After numerous emails trying to get information out of each other I realised that my questions were not being answered. I expressed concerns about scammers and asked for reassurance... which I did not get. In fact the scammer asked me to verify that I was not a scammer, tricking me into thinking they were a legitimate person. The first warning sign was receiving the same email from them twice, and on closer inspection I realised that it was simply an automated response email. I tried to dig further and further to get more information but was confronted with brick walls. The next email almost suckered me in:
Hello
Good to hear from you.I am presently in London, the apartment keys and documents is here with me here in London.I will need to send you the keys and documents by a shipping agent. Actually am not after the rental fee but what i need is someone that will take good care of the apartment for me. This is the reason why am offering the apartment at that rate. I hope you shall be promising me that you will take good care of the apartment. I want you to stick to your words. In this manner i will want you give me the below information before you can be eligible to rent the apartment.I want you to be fast in this process in other for me to be able to send you the keys and documents before you will be visiting the apartment.Infact i will like to meet me you when am coming to visit you soonest.
RENT APPLICATION FORM
1)Your Full Name
2)Your Full Address & Phone Number
4)Are you married?
5)How many people will be living in the house?
6)Do you have a pet?
7)Do you have a car?
Occupation?
9)Rent Duration?

Looking forward to read from you with all this details. so that i can have it in my file in case of issuing the receipt and contacting you. Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how you will get the apartment keys and documents. please am giving you all this base on trust and again i will want you to stick to your words, you know that we have not seen each other yet and am only putting everything into Gods hands.This is my phone number +447024025643 here in London.
Looking forward to read from you.
Cheers

Since they spoke frequently of worry about being scammed I trusted them with some personal information about myself and my boyfriend. I told them I was interested and how could I get the payment to them? But in the same email asked for verification of their identity. The response was:


Hello
Good to hear from you.As i have assured you earlier this is a legitimate transaction.The apartment keys and documents will be shipped to you as soon as you send the deposit.Here is the transfer details you will use in sending the deposit by western union money transfer or money gramm transfer.
Receiver's Name; Clark Peterson
Address ; 46,Kingly Street,
London W1B,
United Kingdom.
Kindly give me the below information which you will be giving after sending the money.
Sender's Name?
Sender's Address?
Money Transfer Control Number?
Amount sent?
I will want you to confirm your shipment information if i get it correctly.I will start the shipment process of the keys and documents as soon as you send the deposit.
Name; (My name)
Address; (My address)
I will be looking forward to read from you .
Cheers

Gee, nothing suss. I am gullible and desperate to find a room so I still feel pangs of guilt wondering if this is really a person just trying to get someone to take care of their apartment, though the voice in my head screams at me NO! I read on another forum that the scammers notoriously use Western Union Money Transfers and also phone numbers that start with +4470 meaning it is directed to a non-england place. Both of these warning signs appeared.
Please other people do not fall into these traps, Keep a keen eye and remember the warning signs. I feel sorry for those who do not do their research and so lose their money. Below are all emails between myself and the scammer (minus personal info). So that you can be aware of the games they play.


Hello ,
The apartment is well furnished two bedroom apartment which has the following facilities .
* living and dinnig room
* 2 bedrooms
* 1 bathroom
* Open kitchen
* Toilet
* Air conditioner
* Central Heating
* Microwave
* Washing Machine
*internet facility
The apartment is located in the following address.
Maliestraat 14, 3581 Utrecht, Netherlands
The rental fee of the apartment is 400 EURO per month including all utility bills .I have attached the photo of the apartment to this mail. kindly notify me if you are satisfied with the apartment in other for us to discuss on the payment process and how you will get the apartment keys and documents.
looking forward to read from you .
Cheers



Hello,

This apartment looks perfect for us. We are very please to have had this response. When is the soonest we could meet in person to discuss documentation and see the apartment in person? We are very enthusiastic to get this underway as soon as possible.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,
**** and ****



Hello ,
>
> The apartment is well furnished two bedroom apartment which has the
> following facilities .
>
> * living and dinnig room
> * 2 bedrooms
> * 1 bathroom
> * Open kitchen
> * Toilet
> * Air conditioner
> * Central Heating
> * Microwave
> * Washing Machine
> *internet facility
>
> The apartment is located in the following address.
>
> Maliestraat 14, 3581 Utrecht, Netherlands
>
> The rental fee of the apartment is 400 EURO per month including all
> utility bills .I have attached the photo of the apartment to this
> mail. kindly notify me if you are satisfied with the apartment in
> other for us to discuss on the payment process and how you will get
> the apartment keys and documents.
>
> looking forward to read from you .
>
> Cheers



Hey,

Just recieved a second email from you containing the same information as the previous. Did you recieve my responce to the previous requesting that we meet up to discuss the next step? Just a little confused. haha

Thanks,
****



Hello
Good to hear from you.I am presently in London, the apartment keys and documents is here with me here in London.I will need to send you the keys and documents by a shipping agent. Actually am not after the rental fee but what i need is someone that will take good care of the apartment for me. This is the reason why am offering the apartment at that rate. I hope you shall be promising me that you will take good care of the apartment. I want you to stick to your words. In this manner i will want you give me the below information before you can be eligible to rent the apartment.I want you to be fast in this process in other for me to be able to send you the keys and documents before you will be visiting the apartment.Infact i will like to meet me you when am coming to visit you soonest.
RENT APPLICATION FORM
1)Your Full Name
2)Your Full Address & Phone Number
4)Are you married?
5)How many people will be living in the house?
6)Do you have a pet?
7)Do you have a car?
Occupation?
9)Rent Duration?

Looking forward to read from you with all this details. so that i can have it in my file in case of issuing the receipt and contacting you. Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how you will get the apartment keys and documents. please am giving you all this base on trust and again i will want you to stick to your words, you know that we have not seen each other yet and am only putting everything into Gods hands.This is my phone number +447024025643 here in London.
Looking forward to read from you.
Cheers


Hey,
I promise with everything I have and am that we will take care of your apartment and any belongings within. We are both mature and respectful people, especially with other people and their things. I will happily answer your questions, you have a right to know who it is wanting to inhabit your space.

1)My name is **** and my boyfriend is ****.
2) At the moment we are staying with a relative at ****, Utrecht. My mobile is **** and **** is ****
3) You missed three haha
4) No we are not married, we've been together a year. We do not fight and you have no need to worry about anything getting damaged in lovers rows. We talk things over calmly rather than fight.
5) **** and I are the only two that I know of looking to move into this address, If you wanted another person for the other room I'd be happy to put some work into finding another person.
6) No we don't have any pets and just for extra info we don't smoke either
7) Neither of us have a car on this side of the world (only in Aus)
I'm a qualified dance teacher, **** is a chef. Currently, we both work at Albert Heijn until we find more desirable work. We both agree an income is a good idea while looking into better jobs.
9) We are both booked to fly back to Australia in May. We are both members of the EU so this could easily change. If you want the place back earlier it is okay, we understand.

I hope these answer put your mind to rest. If you so desired I could give you the contact information for my sister who lives in London. She can reassure you that Im responcible and wont go trashing your apartment haha. I understad your unease as you are putting alot of trust into someone you've never met. I too was weary as there is a scam at the moment conning people into paying a bond for an apartment, when they arrive to move in however it is a non-existant address or is something other than what they have been told. However, via your emails I believe that you are legitimate and not going to take my money and run haha. Obviously a visit from you would be welcomed, after all it is your apartment you have the right to check in on the inhabitants.

Thanks, ****



Hello ,
> Good to hear from you.Am satisfied with your information and am
> willing to offer you the apartment.As i have said earlier that i am
> presently in London and the apartment keys and documents are with me
> here in London which will be shipped to you by a shipping agent.In
> this manner i will suggest you will have to make a month deposit of
> 400 EURO before i can release the apartment keys and documents for you
> in other to ensure a secure transaction.The reason is that there are
> people who are not ready to rent apartment but only have interest in
> vacant apartment address and thereby use the apartment address to scam
> people.I am making this suggestion based on my past experience.Once
> you are able to make the deposit,the apartment keys and documents will
> be shipped to you as soon as possible.I will be looking forward to
> read from you in other for me to give you the money gramm transfer
> details you will use in making the deposit.Also i will want you to
> give me the Name and Address you want me to use in sending you the
> apartment keys and the documents in other for me to start the shipment
> process as soon as you send the deposit.This is my phone number
> +447024025643 here in London.
>
> Looking forward to read from you .
>
> Cheers



Hey,

I would suggest you use my name **** on the package. The mailing address is ****, Utrecht, Netherlands. How should I get the information for the deposit from you? Would it be best to do this over the phone? This could also verify to you that I exist haha. The deposit may take a day or two as all of our money is currently in cash, we will need to deposit it into an account and then transfer. I assure you I have no intent of using your address for anything other than living in and paying rent for. Is there perhaps a way you could doubly reassure me that you too are genuine and not taking a deposit without producing the end result? I hope you understand I have no intention of being rude when I say this, I too just want to ensure my own safety and security as you do. You said you know about people ripping off addresses from a past experience, do you mind me asking what happened? I'm interested to know so I can alert my friends that are also looking for apartments.

If I don't hear back from you either I or **** will call you tomorrow to have a quick chat and grab your information.

Thanks
****

Hello
Good to hear from you.As i have assured you earlier this is a legitimate transaction.The apartment keys and documents will be shipped to you as soon as you send the deposit.Here is the transfer details you will use in sending the deposit by western union money transfer or money gramm transfer.
Receiver's Name; Clark Peterson
Address ; 46,Kingly Street,
London W1B,
United Kingdom.
Kindly give me the below information which you will be giving after sending the money.
Sender's Name?
Sender's Address?
Money Transfer Control Number?
Amount sent?
I will want you to confirm your shipment information if i get it correctly.I will start the shipment process of the keys and documents as soon as you send the deposit.
Name; ****
Address; **** Utrecht, Netherlands.
I will be looking forward to read from you .
Cheers

Hi Siren,

Glad to hear you found out before you lost any money to this scammer.

FYI - in another variation of this scam, instead of sending it to them, the scammer will sometimes tell you to send money to yourself or a friend, claiming that all they want is proof that you have the money, and telling you that since only the receiver can pick up the money, you have nothing to lose. Unfortunately, that is not true. All it takes is the MTCN and the question/answer to pick the money up, or in some cases, the MTCN and a corrupt WU agent (and they definitely exist).

Numbers that start with 44-70 are redirect numbers--they appear to be in London, but are actually redirected to any number the owner chooses. Most often these will redirect to Africa.

Hey Dotti,

Im so glad we found out! It was actually this website that alerted us to the fact that this was all fake. We havn't let on we know that its a fake and we're reporting it in the hope they get caught.

As for the redirected London number... such a handy thing to know I lived in London for a bit so I saw the very first part and thought it to be legitimate, Silly me!

So they sometimes tell you to send money to yourself then they take it? Thats horrible, do these people have morals?

Siren

Hi Siren

very glad we were able to help you avoid being scammed, that is exactly why where here.

Thank you for posting the information you have, it will go a long way to helping others.

Dont think you are silly, you saw something was unusual, you did some research and you found that it was a scam before losing any money to a professional thief, soudns pretty smart to me

The odds of these people being caught is virtually zero, they generally operate from internet cafes in countries where there is massive corruption, even if you did find a straight cop, he would need to actually catch a scammer in teh act of actually stealing from somebody.

If that did happen he may spend a couple of hours in jail before returning to the internet cafe to continue, it really is that bad.

As to your second question, "do these people have morals?" absolutely not, none what so ever

I think I may have come accross another scammer. This one is claiming to already live in the house and therefore would be our housemate. but still when i request a viewing of the house and to meet the other tennant there was no response on the subject. Again they instantly turned to the money we would have to pay initially. They also talk of sending the documents to us when the address is about a 5 minute walk from where we are. Instead of using a company to send the money they are saying we should give it to their mother or family lawyer, is this also a common trick used?

Maybe I am wrong about this one but it seems odd they wouldnt want to meet us before becoming housemates... all abit odd really.

Any opinions?

[AlanJones]

Hi Siren

This definitely sounds dodgy.

Anyone looking for a flat mate would want to meet them first to make sure that they get on with them.

Tell them that you will only give the money to them in person after you have viewed the property and see what excuses they come up with as to why that is not possible.

Will do, and I'll get back to you with their response. So far though they completely failed to acknowledge that I had even requested meeting them. They have used my name in the email (i was careful to only give my first name) which I didnt think scammers did to often but then I have only discovered this scamming in the past couple of days.

Thanks for the advice, lets see how they handle it.

Scammers will call you whatever you want them too if they think you will be sending them money

Siren, could you please post those email from the new scammer and we may be able to confirm for you, so far it definately looks like a scam

Siren,

Sometimes scammers have accomplices or even victims in other countries collecting money for them. If an accomplice, the accomplice takes a cut of their profit.

If a victim, they will generally be a victim of a job scam or romance scam.
- job scam--they answered an online help-wanted ad--they believe their job is collecting payments for a legitimate person or company. They collect the money, then WU all except for their "pay" to the scammer.
- romance scam--scammer claims he is owed money for his "business" -- tragedy strikes on a business trip, and he needs his victim (who thinks scammer is a non-African businessman, model, engineer, etc. and thinks he/she is in love) to collect the money and forward to him. In this case, the victim is not getting paid for his/her role.

dear dotti

thats abit nuts, i almost respect them for the effort they put in and all the time, they probably believe wat their doing is like a real job and say to them self in the morning when they wake up that "it's time to go to work"

i suppose thats humans for you, well i'd rather use the word animals, last time i checked humans were actually animals, and a scammer is a nice piece of proof of this

Siren

By the way. We posted the emails from the second scammer in a seperate post. enjoy the read

Siren

Thank you Siren, that will be a huge help.

Hey just found this and almost got scammed too but we knew better same story:

Hello ,

The apartment is well furnished two bedroom apartment which has the following facilities .

* living and dinnig room
* 2 bedrooms
* 1 bathroom
* Open kitchen
* Toilet
* Air conditioner
* Central Heating
* Microwave
* Washing Machine
*internet facility

The apartment is located in the following address.

Friedrichstrasse 18,10117 Berlin,Germany.

The rental fee of the apartment is 500 EURO per month including all utility bills .I have attached the photo of the apartment to this mail. kindly notify me if you are satisfied with the apartment in other for us to discuss on the payment process and how you will get the apartment keys and documents.

looking forward to read from you .

Cheers

Hello ,
Good to hear from you.Am satisfied with your information and am willing to offer you the apartment.As i have said earlier that i am presently in London and the apartment keys and documents are with me here in London which will be shipped to you by a shipping agent.In this manner i will suggest you will have to make a month deposit of 500 EURO before i can release the apartment keys and documents for you in other to ensure a secure transaction.The reason is that there are people who are not ready to rent apartment but only have interest in vacant apartment address and thereby use the apartment address to scam people.I am making this suggestion based on my past experience.Once you are able to make the deposit,the apartment keys and documents will be shipped to you as soon as possible.I will be looking forward to read from you in other for me to give you the western union money transfer details you will use in making the deposit.Also i will want you to give me the Name and Address you want me to use in sending you the apartment keys and the documents in other for me to start the shipment process as soon as you send the deposit.This is my phone number +447024025643 here in London.

Looking forward to read from you .

Cheers


"Then we asked for his account details to send the money to but we were just finding out more bullshit."


Hello
Good to hear from you.Here is the western union money transfer details you will use in sending the deposit.

Receiver's Name; Hernandez Barrett
Address ; 46,Kingly Street,
London W1B,
United Kingdom.

Kindly give me the below information which you will be giving after sending the money.

Sender's Name?
Sender's Address?
Money Transfer Control Number?
Amount sent?

Also i will want you to give me the Name and Address you want me to use in sending you the apartment keys and documents in other for me to start the shipment process of the keys and documents as soon as you send the deposit.

I will be looking forward to read from you .

Cheers

In the end I sent him this link

Hey just found this and almost got scammed too but we knew better same story:

Hello ,

The apartment is well furnished two bedroom apartment which has the following facilities .

* living and dinnig room
* 2 bedrooms
* 1 bathroom
* Open kitchen
* Toilet
* Air conditioner
* Central Heating
* Microwave
* Washing Machine
*internet facility

The apartment is located in the following address.

Friedrichstrasse 18,10117 Berlin,Germany.

The rental fee of the apartment is 500 EURO per month including all utility bills .I have attached the photo of the apartment to this mail. kindly notify me if you are satisfied with the apartment in other for us to discuss on the payment process and how you will get the apartment keys and documents.

looking forward to read from you .

Cheers

Hello ,
Good to hear from you.Am satisfied with your information and am willing to offer you the apartment.As i have said earlier that i am presently in London and the apartment keys and documents are with me here in London which will be shipped to you by a shipping agent.In this manner i will suggest you will have to make a month deposit of 500 EURO before i can release the apartment keys and documents for you in other to ensure a secure transaction.The reason is that there are people who are not ready to rent apartment but only have interest in vacant apartment address and thereby use the apartment address to scam people.I am making this suggestion based on my past experience.Once you are able to make the deposit,the apartment keys and documents will be shipped to you as soon as possible.I will be looking forward to read from you in other for me to give you the western union money transfer details you will use in making the deposit.Also i will want you to give me the Name and Address you want me to use in sending you the apartment keys and the documents in other for me to start the shipment process as soon as you send the deposit.This is my phone number +447024025643 here in London.

Looking forward to read from you .

Cheers


"Then we asked for his account details to send the money to but we were just finding out more bullshit."


Hello
Good to hear from you.Here is the western union money transfer details you will use in sending the deposit.

Receiver's Name; Hernandez Barrett
Address ; 46,Kingly Street,
London W1B,
United Kingdom.

Kindly give me the below information which you will be giving after sending the money.

Sender's Name?
Sender's Address?
Money Transfer Control Number?
Amount sent?

Also i will want you to give me the Name and Address you want me to use in sending you the apartment keys and documents in other for me to start the shipment process of the keys and documents as soon as you send the deposit.

I will be looking forward to read from you .

Cheers

In the end I sent him this link

Chaosart,

WOW this guy doesn't give up! The same false address and details, man these people must think that the general public have no brains. Rather amusing that you sent the link for this forum, I too was tempted to do so but my boyfriend convinced me not to (though I can't remember why).

I'm glad you detected the scam before handing over money. I'll warn you that since this scammer I have had endless emails from different email addresses and names... all the same story. Quite funny since I'm not even in the same hemisphere any more and clearly am no longer looking for a room in that city.

Good luck with your room hunt and good job detecting the scam... though I understand that now you may be over cautious about even legitimate advertisements (I sure was). But keep your head up.

Siren