Room for Rent Scammer - Lora Colin

Thank you for this post


I want to rent a flat in Bournemouth for this summer. I am not british, so I don't know where to look for. I think I replied to an ad I found in gumtree.

I had two emails and two fake landlords.
1)
The name is now Jennifer Cole but the email she sent me is exactly the same. Her email is

[email protected]
This was the subject:

Tastefully Furnished One Bedroom Flat To Rent In Bournemouth

2) Ing Waldemar Piotr
Hello,
Thanks for your email. I hope you understand my English . Excuse me if I make mistakes but my English not so good. First I want to provide some information.
I live with my family in Italy . I work here in Italy, I have a 5 year contract with a big company . I work as engineer in construction . The flat was at my uncle who unfortunately which is no longer among us because he had a serious accident . I am the only relative survivors and this flat is now mine. My wife does not want to sell the flat and I decided together to rent this flat . Is a beautiful apartment situated in St. Peters Road, Bournemouth , in excellent condition, fully furnished and equipped . There is internet connection, phone, washing machine with dryer, cable TV and most important parking place. The rent is £480 per month including all bills and council tax . You can rent the flat as long as you need to stay but minimum 6 months . The first payment will be for 2 months £960 (one month is in advance £480 and the rest £480 is a guarantee for my flat ) . This money £480 you will get back when we finish the contract if the flat is in good condition . In case you want it, let me know so we can arrange the transaction. Accept families with children I also accept animals (dogs, cats). I do not want people just referenced. I want to rent this flat a family that is really needed which do not damage and for that i don't ask for a big rental amount .
I will wait your email so i know if you are interested to rent this flat .
Thanks ,

Welcome to ScamWarners, morarocio, and thank you for posting the scam mail you received.

If you are looking for a property to rent in the UK, it is a good idea to google "estate agents" and the name of the town you are hoping to move to. You still need to take care and check that the website is genuine. but this is a safer way to start your search than replying to private adverts.

In the case of Bournemouth, also check that the estate agents has a correct area telephone code. On the website (aimed at people who already live in the UK) a Bournemouth telephone number should begin 01202. (From outside the UK, you would dial +44 1202.) A correct area code is still not a sign that a website is genuine, but if the area code is incorrect (and especially if the phone number begins +44 70), that is the first sign that it is probably not a genuine website at all.

Hi everyone, I have had all these messages to, i thought it was pretty genuin to start of with but then just seemed to good to be true. Luckily my partner said to google him because of how wierd it seemed. And found this. The e-mail i got from him was..

[email protected]

Sorry to everyone that got cought by this thief!!

Hi emmajs05, welcome to Scamwarners.

I am glad you realised its a scam before losing any money, well done.

Thank you also for posting the email address, it may well save somebody else from being scammed.

If you have any questions please ask

Thanks to your warning we didn't get scammed by this s** of a b****. (Sorry)
It really helped a lot, we would be in great trouble by now...

May I send him/her an e-mail bomb?

That won't help panzerfaust . In fact it will make him change his mail address and change his identity and stop others avoiding his scam the way you did. We want to have all his victims walk away and pay him nothing. That hurts him the most.

Tactics to hurt scammers are addressed by 419eater.com where I'm also a member.

Thank god for this thread!

Me and my partner have been in correspondence with "Lora Colin" a few times lately, or with John Robinson and Molina Coy as he also refers to himself. We have got messages exactly like those above regarding these amazing, beautiful, too-good-to-be-true-flats in Cambridge. We have seen this no-lifer's ads on gumtree now FOUR times in four days, so apparently he doesn't have a problem with keeping himself busy.

These are the email addresses he's been using with us:

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

This is the phone number we got:

+447031806626

We almost fell for it the first time but something inside our heads said everything's not right here. We didn't find anything suspicious under John Robinson, but Lora Colin gave him finally away now that I googled the name. I just had to share these updates with you, so hopefully no one will ever be scammed by this jackass!

Hi,
This is just to tell that Lora Colin is up and running!! This is the email I got from her. You'll see the huge similarity to other stories of this lad. Actually I became suspicious when I got several emails in a row from different "landlords" all of them in ireland, all of them with bad past experience,the lawyer, western union and so on and so forth.
I just want to add that I called to the company mentioned here M.Gould (scunthorpe). Is not in ireland, it's in England and they immediately told me police is after the person that's been giving this company reference in many occasions. Gumtree should oversee what's going on since their image is getting damaged by these scammers.



Thanks SCAMWARNERS!!!


##### LORA COLIN's message #############
Thanks for the reply and the sincere interest you have in my flat. I spoke with my lawyer concerning your stay in my flat and we both agreed to have you in my flat as long as you'll take good care of my flat as how it is. However, it is unfortunate that my past bitter experience of inviting people to come and view or reserve my flat without any form of confirmation of their financial ability and not keeping up to time as at when scheduled, has brought about great loss to me. I have traveled all the way from Ireland to take some interested candidates round my flat because that's where i work with M. Gould (Scunthorpe) Ltd.

Some outside tenants do not have the money to pay the rent and yet they disturb the the landlord to arrange a viewing with their friend or relative who are in Cambridge, also some do not meet up with the appointments which has led to the dismissal of some landlords in office by their employers.

Henceforth, my lawyer and i have decided to carry out a simple test on financial ability to pay for my rent before coming for viewing. I would not ask you to send your bank statement. At least 1 month rent and security deposit which is £ 400 which is refundable after your 1 month stay in my flat, would be required from you to transfer through Western union money transfer agent. You can make the transfer with your name as a sender name and your partner or friend in UK premises as a receiver.

Once you have done this, scan the receipt to me and if you do not have scanner, you may write out the details on the receipt as i will send it to my lawyer to verify if it's truly genuine and available in your friend's custody, after verification, then we can proceed for the viewing and you can as well tell your friend or partner to pick up the money and also, i will refund back to you the cost of transfer when we meet.

I look forward to reading from you soon. +447031806626 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +447031806626      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Regards
Mr/Mrs Colin

Hi and welcome to Scamwarners. Gumtree, Craigslist, etc, are largely automatic, without enough staff to vet all the adverts. And it wouldn't be a viable business if they did employ the number of people to do so. I'm not a lawyer, but it may be that if they did screen them before accepting them, they may be accepting legal responsibility for any that slipped through.

Welcome to Scamwarners.com dennouncer

Room for Rent Scammers tend to change their e-mail addresses every few days to avoid detection. Would you please post the e-mail address associated with this latest e-mail from "Mr/Mrs Colin".

Sure.
Landlords of the week are :


LORA COLIN - [email protected]

JOY GREG - [email protected]

Email from both were nearly identical, word by word.

Thank you dennouncer

A 'Google' or Forum search should show both e-mail addresses are listed elsewhere on this site.

If you come across any other Room for Rent scammers, then please feel to start a new topic if they are not already listed, or add to an existing one if they are already mentioned on this site.

OMG. I'm so glad that I found this website. We almost got scammed by this fraud Lora Collin. Thank you all for the information about those thieves.
I also have additional information about one fraud.
Her name is: Elizabeth Maria
Email: [email protected]
She wrote me this:
Hello ,
I'm Elizabeth Maria Winter 29 years old originally from Linz Austria the apartment belongs to my late father and my mother have been managing and maintaining the apartment,but she is presently in belfast united kingdom due to her work,am undergraduate student of Warwick University and apartment is very close to city center and its easy to public transportaion and supermarket and store and its just about 2mins walk to public transporation bus stop just 19mins walk to university


The exact address is :12 Charter Ave Coventry, CV4 8GE, United Kingdom

The lease is --£280/month/room/ including the utilities,fridge-freezer,oven, washing machine, dryer, gas cooker,microwave, dishwasher, electricity bill, internet charges and others.

£400 for the security deposit which is refundable during the departure time from the room

Thanks for the introduction of your self,you really sound great.... never mind i can reserve the rooms for you and your boyfriends till your arrival date since there is a perfect procedure that we both have to undergo before you can proceed with the payment

However If you really have interest in renting the room just let me have this request below
-FULL NAME,
-YOUR EXACT ARRIVAL DATE,
-YOUR DEPARTURE DATE,
-YOUR CURRENT ADDRESS
-SCANNED COPY OF YOUR INTERNATIONAL PASSPORT ID,

So that i can quickly instruct our family lawyer to prepare the tenant agreement form for you, to see the terms and condition of the contract and if
you are okay with the terms and condition then you can proceed with the 1month rent and securtiy deposit to my mother in United Kingdom Via western union money transfer so that the room can be reserve for you till your arrival date because there are alot of people that also have interest in renting the room,but my mother prefer the most serious person who pay her first..

The signed agreement form will be send to you first through attached mail(with the scanned page of my international passport).for you to read and understand,after which you will proceed with the payment ,i'll now send you the original copy through a registered courier to your address for you to sign and bring along with you when moving in. Have a nice day,Looking forward in hearing from you.
Best Regards

And then she wrote: Hello,
Thanks for your honest and understanding and one bedrooms will be reserve for you and your boy friends till your arrival date and the street is very quite and secure and its just few minutes walk to public transportaion, i have scan the copy my International passport to know you re dealing with right person and i have forwarded your information to our family lawyer and tenant agreement lease ll be drawn by him and it ll be send to you via attach mail shortly and you have to read it very carefully and as soon you read it and agreed with terms and condition you ll now proceed deposit 680pounds via Western Union or Money Gram to my mother in Belfast united kingdom and do make sure you print out the last page of the agreement out and sign it and scan it back to me and original agreement lease will be sign by me and send to you by postal mail express to the address you provide for me ,and you have to bring the original copy of the lease agreement when you re coming to the flat.thanks for your understanding..
Best Regards

I thought it was too good to be true. And this person was very pushy about the paying. So I didn't fell for this..
Anyway, I hope this information will be useful. Take care everybody!!!

Hey there,

I also stayed in contact with Lora Colin regarding a flat in Plymouth City Center. I got a bit suspicious after I couldn´t find the housenumber on Google Earth via StreetView and thanks to your website I won´t send any money to her!

Here are the messages from her side:

Thanks for the interest you have in my flat. My flat is still available for rent and i can make a reservation for teh said period. Here are the necessary things you need to know about the rent and deposit.

Rent : £ 93.00 pw
Security Deposit: £ 400.00 (Returnable at the end of a month stay in my flat)
Utility bills inclusive ( water, gas, council tax, TV license and wireless Internet) Utility Cost : £ 0.00 pcm

However, my flat is fully furnished in and out. At this stage that you want to rent my flat, i need to know some few question about you. Can you take care of my flat as it is? How many months do you intend to rent and pay for? Do you have references in Plymouth?

Kindly reply for further information and i would like to know more about you.

Regards
Mr/Mrs Colin

Thanks for getting back to me. My flat is located at Southside St, Plymouth, Devon PL1 2LB and it's fully furnished with all necessary house use. I spoke with my lawyer concerning your stay in my flat and we are more than willing to make a reservation for you. However, it is unfortunate that my past bitter experience of inviting people to come and view or reserve my flat without any form of confirmation of their financial ability and not keeping up to time as at when scheduled, has brought about great loss to me. I have traveled all the way from Ireland to take some interested candidates round my flat because that's where i work with M. Gould (Scunthorpe) Ltd.

Some outside tenants do not have the money to pay the rent and yet they disturb the the landlord to arrange a viewing with their friend or relative who are in Plymouth, also some do not meet up with the appointments which has led to the dismissal of some landlords in office by their employers.

However, you will need to make a reservation deposit but before that, my lawyer will need some information from you to draft a contract which you will print and bring along with you on your arrival date to my flat.

Your full name:
Present address:
Confirmed move in date:
Contact number:

Kindly get back to me with these information so that i can tell you how to proceed with the reservation deposit.

Regards
Mr/Mrs Colin
+447031806626

Thanks for the reply and the information provided. My flat is on the first floor and there is a private parking and off street parking as well, i would like to know the duration of your stay i mean how many weeks. I have forward your personal details to my lawyer to draft the tenancy agreement and i will get back to you as soon as i recieve the tenency agreement from him before the end of tomorrow. However, i have already held other prospective candidate because of the sincere interest you have in my flat.

At this stage, i wouldn't want you to disappoint me because i have been disappointed in so many ways by few outside tenant when it comes to reservation but i will reserve my flat for you as long as you'll take good care of my flat. Don't hesitate to ask more question if it's necessary. Have a wonderful time and hope to receive the tenancy agreement from me soon.

Regards
Mr/Mrs Colin

I received the contract from my lawyer and i have attach it to this email. Kindly print it and bring it along with you on your arrival date to my flat. However, you will need to proceed with the reservation deposit of 1month rent of 372 GBP and a security deposit of 400 GBP which is returnable after your first month stay in my flat.

Furthermore, you will need to transfer the deposit through Western union money transfer and after the transfer, you'll get back to me with a scan copy of the transfer receipt so that i can as well attach it to the contract.

Transfer details:
NAME: Lora Colin
ADDRESS: 7 Southside St, Plymouth, Devon PL1 2LB

Kindly let me know when the transfer will be done so that my lawyer can put all necessary utilities reciept in place and note that, i will return the cost of the transfer when you arrive.

I look forward to reading from you soon.

Regards
Mr/Mrs Colin

Also I stayed in contact with another person about another flat and the emails were almost identical:
[email protected]

Quotes added for Clarity - Michelle

Welcome to Scamwarners.com thmechow

These scammers change there e-mail addresses from time to time to avoid detection.

Would you kindly post the e-mail address that the scammer calling himself "Lora Colin" was using during your correspondence.