Rental scammer providing EU bank account?

Hello SW!

My girlfriend almost has been scammed recently - she responded for some rental ads at craigslist. I wanted to know the mechanism, so i responded for the same ads, using fake email. I provided them fake personal details, they wanted Western Union transfer - usual thing. But one of the guys (email: [email protected], his IP somewhere in Nigeria), when asked about bank account, wrote:

Hello,

There is no problem with the bank information, it just that i have not open my own account, but i will forward you my church members information for you to make the payment and as soon as you move in, i will have gotten my own account to make the other monthly payment. You sound skeptical. Here is the information below...

Account Name: ##### #####
Account number: #######
Sort code: ######
BIC: ABBYGB2LXXX
IBAN:GB88ABBY ############
Bank Name: Santander bank.
Bank address: 165 oxford street, london.w1d 2jp, united kindom

IBAN number seems to be correct, so the account may exist. I googled for the name of the account's owner - he seems to exist also.

So, is he traceable? Do you know is it possible to have UK bank account anonymously or with fake name and address?

Best,

WJ

No replies to this ?

Although the posting is old, I'll reply anyway as this sort of situation does crop up.

I've seen this two days ago in a fake Amazon/escrow email, giving a genuine name and bank account number.

After 9/11, nobody in the UK gets to open a bank account with fake ID and/or a fake address. Now you have to prove everything, and banks know how to spot fake documents.

What has happened here is that the real, genuine owner of this genuine bank account has himself fallen for a scam. He has been recruited by a fake company, and he thinks he is some sort of agent handling international financial transactions for this fake company. He is receiving payments wired into his account, then taking out the money (keeping a percentage for himself as agreed with the fake employer) and sending the rest through Western Union to the usual destinations.

He will be able to do this for a few weeks and then his world will come crashing down.

In these circumstances, report it to the police. If you get to speak to the right person who understands such scams, they will know that the bank account owner is also a victim, and not a criminal.

I made such a report only a couple of days ago. The police understood the situation exactly, and they will contact the bank.