Rental Scammer - [email protected]

*****

Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 07:41:23 +0000
From: [email protected]
Subject: CENTRAL LOCATION IN LONDON -
To: Con Warner

Thanks for the interest in my flat. I have attached the pictures of the room . It is a 3 bedroom and 3 bath. Each room cost £350 per month. I am looking for students or professional people to occupy the room, Deposit is only £400 plus 1st month Rent. All common areas like kitchen, dining room, living room, washer/dryer and fenced backyard are accessible. All you pay is rent and the apartments take care of the bills including electricity. A little about myself... I'm a 29 year old male. Pretty mellow and quite, except for an occasional get-together with friends.

Address:34 & 36 (flat 7) Northdown Str, St Pancras, London, N1 9BP, England

Room and apartment description Features:
Brownstone,
Floor #,
Parking available,
No parking cost,
3 Bedrooms,
3 Bathrooms
Home amenities:
Alarm system,
Cable ready,
Washer Dryer,
Dishwasher,
Microwave,
Kitchen access,
Storage.
Room amenities:
Furnished,
Air conditioning,
Private entrance,
Private bath,
Phone jack,
TV Cable jack,

Facilities Bed linen & towels , Heating, Washing machine/Dryer & iron, Kitchen pots & pans, Crockery, Cutlery, Microwave, Oven, 2 hobs, Refrigerator, Kettle, Sat TV, Double Bed, Wardrobe, Drawer , Table Chair. Private bathroom. Please let me know your preference on roommates.

Other information. Preferred Tenant description Age: from 18 to 65 yrs. old Gender doesn't matter,smoking outdoors only,nationality doesn't matter to me as far as you are not a freak.No late night parties and wild drama, you must be a responsible and respectable person with absolutely no criminal background. someone who is easy going, drama free, courteous and responsible. Can you tell me a little about yourself? and Get back to me by filling out the tenancy form.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Thanks

From: [email protected]
Subject: RE: CENTRAL LOCATION IN LONDON - Tenancy Form
To: Con Warner

Hi, Viewing is not a problem but i am scared because of the bad experience i had Some weeks ago, A man asked for permission to come to my house for payment after he said he is interested in my flat and i got him approved by the council, But i never knew he was a criminal, He came to my flat with some men, to cut the long story short , I was robbed and beaten almost to a state of stupor, Now i think you understand me,. But i don't know how to go about these, But i came up with an idea for anyone who wants to view my flat but i am not sure if you are going to reason with me.

This person asks for proof that you are able to pay the deposit and rent due to a string of time wasters.
This proof is in the form of a Western Union or MoneyGram payment either to him, your friend or a family member.

Sounds safe. It's not!

At other times, this person asks for a deposit payment via Western Union or Moneygram with the promise that they will send the keys through a courier company.

In either case, if payment is made and you give this person the details, they will collect the money.
You will not hear from them again.

If you are reading this because you are looking for property to rent, and you are in contact with this thief you are probably searching Craigslist, Gumtree or similar listing sites. If you receive any requests from 'Landlords' asking for some kind of payment before viewing, then it will also be a scam. Please forward the mail to me at the address in my signature line and I will investigate and list them if necessary.

From: Terry Whitmore <[email protected]>
Date: 4 March 2011 19:08
Subject: Re: Tenancy Form Review and Accepted
To: Michelle Banks



Thanks for getting back to me. I need to see proof that you are able to pay the required deposit and due to what happened to me in the past, you can go over to any western union outlet nearest to where you are and have the deposit sent with your partners name and use his/her name as the receiver Name of the deposit so all i just want from you is a confirmation that you make the payment which is by providing the western union deposit slip for verification that you truly have the deposit. Once i receive that confirmation, i will immediately give you a call so that you can come and meet me and then we can go over to the flat to view the room. Once you decide on whether to rent the room, you will sign the necessary documents and then go over to western union and collect the deposit which you will give to me with your hand and then you can move in.

But if the transfer charges bother you, you can deduct £40 in the total amount with you and i will reimburse you if you decide not to take the room again.

I hope this works out well for both of us.

I am really looking forward to reading from you soon!

Best Regards,
Terry

Hi there,
i also almost got scammed from "Pastor Stan Komen. although the home that he advertised no one lives there..
If you would like to help or see the email sent from him, and i got the exact same email but for a different address. Just post and reply. Can't believe there are people like this who take from good hard working people like us. Thank you to this website for creating this because i would of given so called Pastor Stan Komen the bond for the rental place yesterday, beautiful home it is love it but i just have to let it go...

Welcome to ScamWarners solleilua. Please post the information here so others can find the information. We have this site so that the information is available to all.

Variation:-

Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 11:30:20 +0000
From: [email protected]
Subject: Tenancy Form Review and Accepted
To: Michelle Banks

Hello,

I am sorry for getting back to you so late. I went to the city for your residence approval and your tenancy form has been reviewed and accepted that the room should be rented out to you with a residence approval, so you are require to Pay the security deposit and a month rent now. Note that the security deposit is refundable immediately after your period of stay if there is no damage of property by you.

What you are to do now is to look for a nearest western union outlet and make the payment of the security deposit and a month rent of £750.

Kindly make the deposit to the below information.

Receivers Name: Terry Whitmore
Receivers Address: 34 & 36 (flat 7) Northdown Str,
St Pancras, London,
N1 9BP, England.

Once the transfer has been made, kindly email me back with the below info.

Senders Name:
Senders Address:
Mtcn confirmation #:
Amount to be Sent: £750

Kindly email me with the above info once the deposit has been made so that your receipt can be issued out scanned and email to you on time today because you will have to come along with when coming for move in.

Expecting your reply.

Last seen writing from IP address 41.155.89.116

Header Analysis Quick Report
Originating IP: 41.155.89.116
Originating ISP: Starcomms Limited
City: Lagos
Country of Origin: Nigeria
* For a complete report on this email header goto ipTRACKERonline

Hi, I'm looking for a rented place in Oxford and saw on Gumtree an ad for 3 rooms in a flat on Howard St.
I replied and soon got:

Thanks for the interest in my flat. I have attached the pictures of the room . It is a 3 bedroom and 3 bath. Each room cost £350 per month. I am looking for students or professional people to occupy the room, Deposit is only £400 plus 1st month Rent. All common areas like kitchen, dining room, living room, washer/dryer and fenced backyard are accessible. All you pay is rent and the apartments take care of the bills including electricity. A little about myself... I'm a 29 year old male. Pretty mellow and quite, except for an occasional get-together with friends.

Address: 181 Howard Street, Oxford. OX4 3AZ.

Room and apartment description Features:
Brownstone,
Floor #,
Parking available,
No parking cost,
3 Bedrooms,
3 Bathrooms
Home amenities:
Alarm system,
Cable ready,
Washer Dryer,
Dishwasher,
Microwave,
Kitchen access,
Storage.
Room amenities:
Furnished,
Air conditioning,
Private entrance,
Private bath,
Phone jack,
TV Cable jack,

Facilities Bed linen & towels , Heating, Washing machine/Dryer & iron, Kitchen pots & pans, Crockery, Cutlery, Microwave, Oven, 2 hobs, Refrigerator, Kettle, Sat TV, Double Bed, Wardrobe, Drawer , Table Chair. Private bathroom. Please let me know your preference on roommates.

Other information. Preferred Tenant description Age: from 18 to 65 yrs. old Gender doesn't matter,smoking outdoors only,nationality doesn't matter to me as far as you are not a freak.No late night parties and wild drama, you must be a responsible and respectable person with absolutely no criminal background. someone who is easy going, drama free, courteous and responsible. Can you tell me a little about yourself? and Get back to me by filling out the tenancy form.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Thanks

followed by a "tenancy form" which really should have tipped me off, but lack of sleep, imminent eviction and desperation led to me filling it out and emailing it back, which got me this:

Hello,

I am sorry for getting back to you so late. I went to the city for your residence approval and your tenancy form has been reviewed and accepted that the room should be rented out to you with a residence approval, so you are require to Pay the security deposit and a month rent now. Note that the security deposit is refundable immediately after your period of stay if there is no damage of property by you.

What you are to do now is to look for a nearest western union outlet and make the payment of the security deposit and a month rent of £750.

Kindly make the deposit to the below information.

Receivers Name: Terry Whitmore
Receivers Address: 181 Howard Street, Oxford. OX4 3AZ.

Once the transfer has been made, kindly email me back with the below info.

Senders Name:
Senders Address:
Mtcn confirmation #:
Amount to be Sent: £750

Kindly email me with the above info once the deposit has been made so that your receipt can be issued out scanned and email to you on time today because you will have to come along with when coming for move in.

Expecting your reply.

Now, I may be stupid, but I happen to live near the property in question so I popped out and compared the photos sent with the actual building, and it's not a match.

The originating IP is 41.155.66.210, which is of course Starcomms Lagos Nigeria.
I suppose the fact that the english used in the emails and ad is reasonably good helped fool me, that and wishful thinking.
Since the email is a yahoo.co.uk, is there no way to contact them to have them block or close it down, or at least check people getting a co.uk address are actually in the uk rather than in Nigeria?

I feel like an idiot. And probably am one...

Hello, you are not an idiot. Scammers use as many ways to keep the people they contact from knowing the truth as they can. Your idea is not a bad one, thought that avenue has been explored before. Email providers do not have the resources to check out each and every person who signs up for an email account. Some try by requiring a telephone number to register, but even that can be thwarted.

The best thing people can do is beware of scams. We try to educate people about the kinds of scams out on the internet. We know that we do harm the income of scammers.

I am concerned that you have used your real name as your user name. If this is true, please send me a PM and I can help to get it changed so your name is not picked up and used in ways you don't want it used.

We are glad you are here.

Hello, you are not an idiot. Scammers use as many ways to keep the people they contact from knowing the truth as they can. Your idea is not a bad one, thought that avenue has been explored before. Email providers do not have the resources to check out each and every person who signs up for an email account. Some try by requiring a telephone number to register, but even that can be thwarted.

The best thing people can do is beware of scams. We try to educate people about the kinds of scams out on the internet. We know that we do harm the income of scammers.

I am concerned that you have used your real name as your user name. If this is true, please send me a PM and I can help to get it changed so your name is not picked up and used in ways you don't want it used.

We are glad you are here.

Thanks.
As to email providers "not have the resources to check out each and every person who signs up for an email account", without wishing to appear contentious or argumentative, I beg to differ, to some extent.
The resources needed are the computers and servers they already have, and adding a simple IP trace to the registration process whilst creating the account. It could easily be automated, as part of the existing automated account creation process.
There are many, many websites which already have a built in automatic feature which will display your IP as soon as you open the page (speedtest.net springs to mind), and automated services which display the country of origin for a given IP. So I register with Yahoo as "[email protected]" and as part of the process my IP is checked to see if it originates in the UK. No extra resources needed, just a bit of extra code added to the websites used to create email accounts. I'm no programmer but I'm willing to bet even I could do it.
Here:
http://tech-flood.blogspot.com/2008/04/ ... ogger.html
That took 30 seconds to google and to add to my own website. Admittedly it would take a bit more to put it into a registration process, but not vast resources by any means.
No, if the companies involved in providing email don't do this, I don't believe it's due to lack of resources, but because they don't want to. If pressure were to be loudly and publicly put on them, (or for that matter on the likes of microsoft et al to put a built in ip location display into email clients) I bet they would suddenly find the "resources". As it stands, they are basically facilitating, if not actually abetting, every internet scam based around someone purporting to be someone else, from somewhere else.
Most users, (and scammers) do not realize that all internet interaction, from website surfing to emails, is, and has to be, completely traceable in both directions to work. But it's all hidden "under the hood" and it's often only when it's too late do we become suspicious enough to actually look at the headers etc of emails. If my email client had displayed as a matter of course the ip location of the email I received, I would never have responded. Is it my responsibility do check the ip of every single email I get? Arguably so. Would it kill them to automate that and display it for me? No.

And I know it's complicated by "ip hiding" services, but most scammers seem too lazy or ignorant to use these.
And I also know that it would just lead to an adjustment of behaviour by scammers in the long term, (or at least an adjustment by the cleverer ones). So it's not a panacea, by any means. But just because a door lock can be kicked in or picked doesn't mean we don't bother locking our doors, do we?

Anyway, sorry for the rant, you have a good site here providing a valuable service. Thanks for that.

I too was scammed by this 'Stan Komen' last year.

"Hi

Thank you for the inquiries about my 3 bedrooms house for rent and sorry for the late response it was due to my busy schedule,i will like to briefly introduce myself to you, My name is Pastor Stan Komen,a citizen of the united state of America,i bought this house when i came to Newtown. I lost my wife as a result of Breast Cancer and ever since her death i open a campaign in conjunction with her sister Nancy. "The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation which is now called Suzan G Komen for the cure" in her memory so that we can assist those that are victims and eradicate breast cancer as a life-threatening disease.There are severely Multinational companies that have shown interest in it and they've been of good support to the organization. The program is taking place in different major countries in which are united states,Canada,Sweden,New Zealand,Holland, Singapore,United Kingdom and some countries in Africa. I do travel to different countries in the world and work in conjunction with UNICEF but presently i'm in the United Kingdom on a campaign program.I will like you to put this organization in your prayers because there are a lot of people suffering with this deadly disease all over the world and you can know more about our organization here: http://ww5.komen.org. Below are my house information.

Weekly Rent including utilities: $200
Two weeks bond Deposit Required: $400
Total Floor Size: 120.0m²
Total Land Size: 283m²
house Address: 63 Owen St Newtown, Wellington 6021, New Zealand

Beautifully sited for the best sun, privacy and refreshingly simple in it's everyday practicality. This picture book three bedroom Villa plus study, of 100 sqm, is totally genuine to the original build though it has been recrafted and modernised. In addition, a 20 sqm garden studio/study of sympathetic build to the Villa with modern plumbing and power could be your special writer's corner or guest-nest! Set back on an easy care, landscaped 'Pacifica' green garden.

Fully furnished with nice couch, TV and DVD,Air Conditioners,internet Cable,Dishwasher,Garbage disposal,Microwave,security alarm,gas security deposit is required to rent my house and utilities are included in the rent,it is available for rent for either short or long term and all my furniture's are packed inside the storage room so you can make use of them if you wish.You can drive by the house and check out the surrounding and location at your earliest convenient,
meanwhile i have attached some pictures of my house so you can have an idea of what it looks like.Note that the keys and documents of my house will be sent to you as soon as you have been approved to live in my house.If still interested in renting my house,i want you to get back to me requesting for an application form for proceedings.

Best Regards.

Pastor Stan Komen +447024037913"


He even went as far as to ring and talk to me!