Room for Rent and other rental scams
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by rental1 Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:22 am
Thank you so much for taking the time to report this scam renter. I knew it didn't sound right. When you listen to your instinct and use common sense it pays off.

Thanks again.
by noscamshere Mon Feb 27, 2012 5:15 pm
I have an e-mail string (see below) and just received a check! Much to my surprise! I have been talking with a few different people about renting a room and thought this was weird from the start. (usually I don't respond with all of the grammar mistakes). Here is my e-mail string, proof. Will post if more details are sent . . . Glad this came up on google!!! I posted an ad in Room/share in Michigan Craigslist.


Joy Kris [email protected]
Feb 19 (9 days ago)

to me
Hi, My name is Joy Kris (F),I am 26yrs old,I am fun loving,
personal, friendly,clean, caring,and respectful of others.a
non-smoker, don't do drugs, i drink occasionally,and drama free. I
graduated last year in France, I am single and have no children,I do
bible study.I am from Spain,specifically Murcia, I was born in Osmond
Beach in Florida,my dad is from there too but my mum is from Spain...I
went to University of Navarra in Spain. I speak both English and
Spanish fluently,am presently on research work at Hawaii,am almost
done.with that bcos its part of my prerequisite for my masters in
Microbiology.I would have loved to call you but this is a remote area
calls is hard to go through from here and i don't want to waste much
time. Am really interested in renting from you and i do really love
pets but i don't have any at the moment. I would have loved to see it
but am very far,but with pictures,I am glad. I will also like you to
tell me more about you and if you have garage or parking space cos I
will have my own car come over, pls let me know the total payment of
the place and more over I will send your email to my dad for him to
email you later bcos he is the one that will be paying the bills but
nevertheless,I will like you to send me your Full Name and the Mailing
Address, your Phone number as well,so that my Dad will issue out the
payment for the place as soon as possible,with that you can hold on
the place for me till i come . I will be looking forward to your email
soonest. Thanks and have a nice day



Joy Kris [email protected]
Feb 21 (6 days ago)

to me
I will be paying you for March rent then you will help me pay the
apt manager this is the more reason why i asked my dad to make the
payment payable to your name. I will attach my flight itinerary in the
next email so that you can know the exact time and date i will arrive
next week ,Also i will like to know if you can pick me up at the air
port on my arrival because this is my first time of coming to the
state and i don't know anybody.As regards my furniture and my car,is
plan to have them delivered to the house before my arrival so that i
can settle in comfortably also i'm paying more and more for having my
items with the Company (demo rage),you can understand that transiting
cross Atlantic is not easy so i am making arrangement with the
furniture company to deliver some furniture and the car before my
arrival this week after you have gotten the rent and security deposit.
I will ask you for a favor here,can i rely on you to take delivery of
my furniture and the car for me when they are delivered.I will
instruct the furniture company to contact you to schedule a delivery
time that will be convenient for you to receive the items for me .As
you will be handling the delivery of the items with the rent and
deposit that will be sent to you so that you can help me to make the
payment when they are delivered.I will really appreciate if you can do
this for me and promise to compensate you adequately for your time
and efforts on my arrival in your place


Joy Kris [email protected]
12:25 PM (3 hours ago)

to me
Hello i will like you to update me now concerning the payment that you
received then let me know the best time you want shipper to come for
delivery??
by willnotbescammed Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:49 am
I received the following in response to my posted add:


[email protected]

** CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY --- AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY
** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home
** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping
** More Info: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams

Room still available??


Joy Kris


------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message was remailed to you via: my email at craigslist
If this email is a scam or spam please flag it now:
http://craigslist.org/flag/201202210415 ... oV7_Sdfpbw

I responded as follows: note also the email response address was automatic

[email protected]
date: Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 12:48 PM
subject: Re: $700 Family Home - Large Bedroom (Bern Township Reading)
mailed-by: gmail.com


Yes, the room is still for rent. Without any insinuation toward you, please tell me more about yourself. I have had a few scammers reply to this and I am alert, so please simply tell me from where you are moving and why and would you be willing to speak with me via the telephone?

Thank you.

I then received the following response.


Joy Kris [email protected]
Feb 23 (6 days ago)

to me


Thanks for getting back to me ... My name is Joy Kris (Female),I am 25yrs
old,I am fun loving, personal, friendly,clean, caring,and respectful
of others.a non-smoker, don't do drugs, i drink occasionally,and drama
free.I graduated last year in France, I am single and have no
children ...i do bible study, and sometimes we do karaoke night with
my roommate! i go to church every Sunday. I am coming for my Masters
degree. i am from USA,specifically Hawaii, I was born in Honolulu in
Hawaii,my dad is from there too but my mum is from Spain...I went to
Chaminade University of Honolulu in Hawaii.I speak both English and
Spanish fluently ,am presently on research work at Hawaii, and almost
done with that bcos its part of my prerequisite for my masters in
Microbiology . I would have loved to call you but this is a remote
area calls is hard to go through from here and i don't want to waste
much time .Am really interested in renting from you or to be your
roomie and i do really love pets but i don't have any at the moment.I
would have loved to see it but am very far,but with pictures,I am
glad. I will also like you to tell me more about you and if you have
garage or parking space cos I will have my own car come over,pls let
me know the total payment of the place and more over I will send your
email to my dad for him to email you later bcos he is the one that
will be paying the bills but nevertheless,I will like you to send me
your
1.....Full Name to write on the check
2.....Full Physical address to post the check(P.O box never accepted)
3.....City, State and Zip Code
4.....Home Phone to contact you
5.....Cell Phone to contact you

so that my Dad will issue out the payment for the place as soon as
possible,with that you can hold on the place for me till i come. I
will be looking forward to your email soonest
by noscamshere Wed Feb 29, 2012 10:13 am
And another e-mail since I followed up with the scammer, below. It is a Western Union money scam . . .




Joy Kris [email protected]
Feb 28 (1 day ago)

to me
HELLO, NOW THAT YOU HAVE THE PAYMENT TODAY, BELOW IS WHAT TO DO.......

Firstly, Am sorry for the late respond, due to my Father sending the
payment to you, and i just got a notification from my Financier that
the check of ($2950) was delivered to you today and here is the FedEx
tracking number provided by them (793267490192) I will be in
the state before ending of this month i will let you know exact date
and time i will arrive to the state, as we both agreed, i want you to
deduct your total move in cost and make a transfer of $2400 via
Western Union Money Transfer to the person in charge of the delivery
of the furniture and my car because i want the delivery to be made
before my arrival so that i can settle in comfortably.

below is the delivery agent information to send the rest money to via
Western Union Money Transfer:


Agent's Name: Christopher Nguyen
Address: 520 Texas St
Houston, TX 77002

As soon as you have done the transaction kindly get back to me with
Western Union information given to you so that i can forward it to
Christopher Nguyen and the delivery can be made asap. info you are to
provide Such as...

[Name and address you use to send the money,10digit MTCN number on the
receipt and total amount send after transfer fee or scan copy of
western union receipt.Hope to read back from you asap.

I can't wait to meet you asap. Thanks, and i'm waiting for your response asap.

God Bless
by gloval Mon Mar 19, 2012 1:29 am
This email looks very familiar to me...it started with [email protected] as a response to a rental that I posted on craigslist...
Kelly Johnson [email protected]
10:20 PM (23 hours ago)

to me
thanks for getting me back.. ... My name is Kelly Johnson (F),I am
25yrs old,I am fun loving, personal, friendly,clean, caring,and
respectful of others. a non-smoker, don't do drugs, i drink
occasionally,and drama free. I graduated last year in France, I am
single and have no children ... i do bible study, and sometimes we do
karaoke night with my roommate! i go to church every Sunday .I am
coming for my Masters degree. i am from Spain,specifically Malaga, I
was born in Ormond Beach in Florida,my dad is from there too but my
mum is from Spain...I went to University of Navarra in Spain. I speak
both English and Spanish fluently ,am presently on research work at
Hawaii , am almost done.with that bcos its part of my prerequisite
for my masters in Microbiology . I would have loved to call you but
this is a remote area calls is hard to go through from here and i
don't want to waste much time .
Am really interested in renting from you and i do really love pets
but i don't have any at the moment. I would have loved to see it but
am very far,but with pictures,I am glad. I will also like you to tell
me more about you and if you have garage or parking space cos I will
have my own car come over, pls let me know the total payment of the
place and more over I will send your email to my dad for him to email
you later bcos he is the one that will be paying the bills but
nevertheless,I will like you to send me your Full Name and the Mailing
Address, your Phone number as well,so that my Dad will issue out the
payment for the place as soon as possible,with that you can hold on
the place for me till i come . I will be looking forward to your email
soonest....Also you can add me on my IM [email protected]
so we can get to know Each other Better... Thanks
by cabalynn Fri Mar 23, 2012 1:59 pm
Beware, I had a room for rent posted and a person with the following email:

[email protected] tried to scam me.

This individual tried to get personal information from me claiming "her" dad would be paying the rent etc.

These people take your ID, address and bank accountss and wipe you clean. My gut feeling lead me to google the email and i found many people had this same individual try to scam them. This same indicual could not scam me with carson email so they tried this email:

[email protected]

The following is the first email i received from them:

Thanks for getting back to me... My name is Samantha Whitney (F),I am

BEWARE OF THIS SCAMMER.....
27yrs old,I am fun loving, personal, friendly,clean and respectful of
others. A non-smoker, don't do drugs, i drink occasionally,and drama
free. I graduated last year in France. I am single and have no
children... I do bible study, and sometimes we do karaoke night with
my roommate! i go to church every Sunday. Am coming for my masters
degree. I was born in France (Bordeaux), my dad is from USA but my
mum is from Paris...I went to University of Bordeaux in France i
speak both French and English ,am presently on research work at Guam
USA), am almost done with the research. Am doing it because its part
of prerequisite for my masters in Microbiology. I would have loved to
call you but this is a remote area calls is hard to go through from
here and i don't want to waste much time.

Am really interested in renting from you and i don't really love pets
but i don't care if there is any in the house. I would have loved to
see it but am very far,but with pictures,I am glad. I will also like
you to tell me more about you and if you have garage or parking space
because I will have my own car come over, please let me know the total
payment of the place and more over I will send your email to my dad
for him to email you later because he is the one that will be paying
the bills but nevertheless,I will like you to send me

your full Name
and the mailing address,
your phone number as well,

so that my Dad will issue out the payment for the place as soon as
possible,with that you can hold on the place for me till i come. I
will be looking forward to your email soonest. Thanks and have a nice
day.
by dontwannabscammed Fri Mar 30, 2012 9:15 am
I received these emails from Joy Kris too and responded out of curiosity to tease out the scam. I forgot about it and received a check for $3500 yesterday. I thought it was a payment from a tenant that owed me money so I deposited it. Then, this morning, I received the emails saying a check had been sent and to wire the money for the furniture to someone else. Obviously, I am not going to do that. I fully expect that the check will bounce, that it is not a valid check. But I read in these postings that they steal your ID and bank account numbers and wipe you clean. I don't see how that is possible but am I missing something? Did depositing the check somehow put me at risk?
by Dotti Fri Mar 30, 2012 10:22 am
But I read in these postings that they steal your ID and bank account numbers and wipe you clean. I don't see how that is possible but am I missing something?


There is a variant of this scam in which the scammers ask for the victim's account information for wire transfers, or get them to hand over a lot of key personal information that allows us to do more damage. In that situation, obviously bad things can happen.

In the fake check version, the scammer has no access to your banking or other personal information beyond what you provided him. In fact, since he doesn't actually own the bank account the check is written on, most of the time he has no real way of even knowing if you attempted to deposit it. Unless you handed out a lot of highly confidential information, you don't need to stress.

Need to post photos? http://scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=3219
Are you a victim of a romance scam? Read here for advice and FAQ's.
by Alhee22 Wed Jun 20, 2012 12:09 pm
I have had the same reponse but by a different name and two weeks later I just recived a response from Joy Kris, here is the first respose from courtney

thanks for getting me back.. ... My name is Courtney Lance (F),I am
25yrs old,I am fun loving, personal, friendly,clean, caring,and
respectful of others. a non-smoker, don't do drugs, i drink
occasionally,and drama free. I graduated last year in France, I am
single and have no children ... i do bible study, and sometimes we do
karaoke night with my roommate! i go to church every Sunday .I am
coming for my Masters degree. i am from Spain,specifically Malaga, I
was born in Ormond Beach in Florida,my dad is from there too but my
mum is from Spain...I went to University of Navarra in Spain. I speak
both English and Spanish fluently ,am presently on research work at
Hawaii , am almost done.with that bcos its part of my prerequisite
for my masters in Microbiology . I would have loved to call you but
this is a remote area calls is hard to go through from here and i
don't want to waste much time . Am really interested in renting from
you and i do really love pets but i don't have any at the moment. I
would have loved to see it but am very far,but with pictures,I am
glad. I will also like you to tell me more about you and if you have
garage or parking space cos I will have my own car come over, pls let
me know the total payment of the place and more over I will send your
email to my dad for him to email you later bcos he is the one that
will be paying the bills but nevertheless,I will like you to send me
your Full Name and the Mailing Address, your Phone number as well,so
that my Dad will issue out the payment for the place as soon as
possible,with that you can hold on the place for me till i come . I
will be looking forward to your email soonest.... you can add me on my IM
[email protected] so we can get to know Each other Better...
Regard Courtney.....

I have been talking to another person and I am scared it could also be a scam
by tinybunky Mon Aug 06, 2012 1:10 pm
I too received emails:

July 28, 2012

Hello,

How re you doing? thanks so much for the speedy response,I really appreciate it alot.I want you to know that I am so much interested in the place since you have decided to rent it out,I want to assure you that I am really okay about the cost,because its been a while i saw my mom and i will like to see her before moving in, ,and i have to travel to Spain to see her,but i want to make sure that I secure the place before travelling to see my her.. A great meaning for me is a human's soul. Am neat, clean, I have great sense of humor, honest, responsible, straight forward, deligent, like to be serious when needed but also like to have fun and enjoy life, well,am a quiet and gentle, Easy going person and loving to live with.Talking about things i do with leassure time.I like the outdoors, like sports, like to workout,like to go to the movies and like swimming,a very caring person also. Im 25, 5'8 brown hair, brown eyes, pretty good shape. I will be sending my picture in the next email.

I was born and brought up in Spain,i studied there,i had my university education as well in Spain with my mom.. I lived all my life in Spain before coming down to Navada(USA), I have been living with my mom since have been 13 years of age cause i lost my dad when i was 13 years of age and my mom has been singlehandedly been taking care of me since then.When i was 11years old i was member of the Red Cross Association,I was really proud of it and loved it... I will like to pay my mom a visit before relocating finally cause its been 4 years since i have seen her and she is getting old. She will be 63 in about 2 weeks...

Am moving over to your state because i understand that i'll be doing good over there cause i just concluded my Master of Science in Nursing (MSN),I was there last summer and i really enjoyed the place and i think and know i will have a very good job offer and life over there since i now have my Master of Science in Nursing (MSN). And i will be working with any hospital around,as i am also making necessary enquiries on that now.... Am sure You 'll really my kind of person ,because i will also do the dishing if you like,I work when i am suppose to and relax when i am to,I also like sharing my thoughts also cause they say a problem shared is a problem half solved....paying rent on time will not be a problem as i will also be making the rent fee before the month ends....
Right now.I ve the support of bank account cause i am competent of paying up to six month to one year at a go.So you shouldn't be bothered about if i am competent of paying the rent ..

I would have been kind of happy if we can meet,before making any plans,but am very busy and i have a lot of things to do right now.Right now,am in living in Navada,Provided below is my present address.:::578 N Sierra St
Reno, NV 89503, USA You can as well text me anytime but i only receive calls when i am off duty. 775-234-2963 . My rent will expire very soon....

I will want to secure the place down before my arrival so i will want you to tell me all about the place,as i can't see it before my arrival, sending me some pictures will help alot...I also will want you to know that i have my car that i will be coming over with,and little of my furnitures,please let me know if there will be room for them..
With all that i ve said above,I have told you more about me,Let me also know how i can go about securing the place down before my arrival as i will also be busy from next week preparing to come over and let me know if you can take off the ad off the site as i am going to secure the place with a deposit .
Feel free to ask me any question and as i ve said,i am looking to move in by the availability of the place,but want to secured it now
Thanks..
([email protected])

and

July 25, 2012

Thanks for getting back to me... My name is Cheryl Weeks (F),I am
26yrs old,I am fun loving, personal, friendly,clean and respectful of
others.A non-smoker, don't do drugs, i drink occasionally,and drama
free. I graduated last year in France. I am single and have no
children... I do bible study, and sometimes we do karaoke night with
my roommate! i go to church every Sunday.
Am coming for my masters degree. I was born in France (Bordeaux), my
dad is from USA but my mum is from Paris...I went to University of
Bordeaux in France i speak both French and English ,am presently on
research work at CO (USA), am almost done with the research.Am doing
it because its part of prerequisite for my masters in Microbiology. I
would have loved to call you but this is a remote area calls is hard
to go through from here and i don't want to waste much
time.
Am really interested in renting from you and i don't really love pets
but i don't care if there is any in the house. I would have loved to
see it but am very far,but with pictures,I am glad. I will also like
you to tell me more about you and if you have garage or parking space
because I will have my own car come over, please let me know the total
payment of the place and more over I will send your email to my dad
for him to email you later because he is the one that will be paying
the bills but nevertheless,I will like you to send me your full Name
and the mailing address, your phone number as well,so that my Dad will
issue out the payment for the place as soon as possible,with that you
can hold on the place for me till i come. I will be looking forward to
your email soonest. Thanks and have a nice day.
([email protected])
by NY2010resident Sat Sep 22, 2012 7:27 pm
I posted on craigslist and got a scammer email me back. In my ads I always ask for a phone number. Within a few hours of posting I got a few replies asking if the rental was still available :

From : [email protected]
To :
September 21, 2012 9:44pm

Hello,

Is this still available?
by avramd Sun Nov 18, 2012 11:57 pm
robrrt wrote:I've received these replies too. What stood out to me was the fact that email addresses are switched between the initial inquiry and the proposition email:
Cheryl Weeks <[email protected]> --- Cheryl Weeks <[email protected] >
Rose Ward <[email protected]> --- Rose Ward <[email protected] >


I'd like to thank robrrt for reminding me to look at this detail - that the initial inquiry and the response came from different addresses. Granted it's not a guarantee of safety when the addresses match - but when you've got a suspicious email in the first place, it helps tip the scales towards scam.

Mine second email also came from "Rose Ward <[email protected]>". but my first one came from "Rose Ward <[email protected]>".

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